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TYPES OF WELTSCHMERZ 
IN GERMAN POETRY 



BY 



WILHELM ALFRED BRAUN, A.B. 

SOMETIME FELLOW IN GERMANIC LANGUAGES AND 
LITERATURES, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the 

Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy 

Columbia University 



NEW YORK 
1905 



I 



4 Lancasterian System in the Schools of New York City 

any new school without the consent of the Board of Education, and 
by the refusal of the Board to furnish all the money needed to make 
up deficits. 

The anomalous situation of two systems of public schools existing 

side by side came to an end in 1853, when the Public School Society 

ceased to exist, and its schools, with an attend- 

Two Systems ^k ance °^ a ^ out 20,000 and property estimated at 
about half a million, were turned over to the 
Board of Education. During the forty-eight years of its history the 
Society had, as it claimed, educated 600,000 pupils and trained 1200 
teachers. 

At first the public schools were supported by voluntary subscrip- 
tion, with no fees from pupils, and no financial aid from the city or 
state. The contributions for the first year 
SuDoort amounted to $6501. The pay system was intro- 

duced in 1826, but proved unsuccessful and, after 
a trial of six years, was relinquished. Nor was the subscription plan 
by any means adequate to maintain the public schools. As early as 
1807 a grant of $500 was made by the city; and by the state $4000 was 
appropriated for building, and $1000 annually to be paid out of the 
liquor tax. From 1815 the Society received its share of the State 
Common School Fund, amounting at that time to $3700, and from 
1819 one half of the tax on lottery licenses, amounting to $1000. 
The request for a tax of one-half mill was met by the Legislature in 
1829 by the grant of a tax of one-eighth mill, which in 1831 was 
raised to one-half mill. Governor Seward, in his annual message 
for 1842, stated that the trustees of the Society were the dispensers 
of an average annual sum of $35,000 from the Common School Fund 
and $95,000 from a tax on real and personal estates of the city. Ex- 
penditures rapidly increased under the Board of Education. After 
1871 school buildings were paid for by the issue of city bonds. For 
the maintenance of schools, the Legislature fixed, in 1901, a four mill 
tax, which, however, two years later, was reduced to three mills. 
This rate proved to be. insufficient, unless supplemented by appro- 
priations by the Board of Estimate, to meet the cost of higher salaries 
and the great expansion of school activities, a sum amounting to 
about $40,000,000 a year, nearly one-fourth of the city budget. 

That the education of the poor was a proper object of private 
philanthropy, rather than a matter of direct public responsibility, 



Introduction 5 

was quite in accord with the educational and polit- 
ical ideas prevalent at the beginning of the nine- and x Economy 
teenth century. Direct control of public schools 
and greatly increased expenditures were manifestations of the broader 
view of municipal functions which developed about the middle of the 
century. In 1842 the Croton water supply was provided, in 1851 
Central Park was purchased; in 1845 the Police Department was 
established, in 1865 the paid Fire Department, and in 1866 the 
Board of Health. The per capita expenditures doubled each de- 
cade from 1850 to 1870. 

The trustees' of the Public School Society never had the funds or 
the public opinion to support any expensive undertaking. They 
lacked the money to establish a much desired high school or to sup- 
port evening schools. Their finest school house, called a "model 
building," cost $17,000 for ground, building, and furnishing. The 
salaries of teachers were considerably less than those of the Ward 
Schools. The cost of tuition and supplies per pupil was, in 1823, 
as low as $1.80. 

It was, in great measure, due to the "limited state of funds" that 
the society introduced in their first school, in 1806, the monitorial 
system, at that time in vogue in England and on 
the continent through the adaptation and popular- Svstem 

ization of mutual instruction by Bell and Lan- 
caster. As Bell's system was pushed by the Church of England 
and associated with its religious propaganda, while Lancaster's was 
non-sectarian and supported by non-conformists, particularly by 
the Friends, the latter form was naturally the one to enlist the inter- 
est of the trustees of the Free School Society, among whom Friends 
were the dominant influence. For the details of the plan the Society 
was indebted to its first secretary, Benjamin Perkins, who visited 
Lancaster in London and published, in 1807, the first American 
edition of the "Improvements in Education." Through the agency 
of the British and Foreign School Society a trained teacher was 
brought over from England in 1818. Lancaster himself arrived 
later in the year. Though necessarily modified by the adoption of 
the Infant School system, and by the introduction of higher branches 
of study, the monitorial system retained the official sanction of the 
society. To the city of New York belongs the distinction of the 
introduction of the system in America and its most consistent sup- 
port. 



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in 2011 with funding from 
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PREFACE 

The work which is presented in the following pages is 
intended to be a modest contribution to the natural history of 
Weltschmerz. 

The writer has endeavored first of all to define carefully the 
distinction between pessimism and Weltschmerz; then to clas- 
sify the latter, both as to its origin and its forms of expression, 
and to indicate briefly its relation to mental pathology and to 
contemporary social and political conditions. The three poets 
selected for discussion, were chosen because they represent dis- 
tinct types, under which probably all other poets of Welt- 
schmerz may be classified, or to which they will at least be 
found analogous ; and to the extent to which such is the case, 
the treatise may be regarded as exhaustive. In the case of each 
author treated, the development of the peculiar phase of Welt- 
schmerz characteristic of him has been traced, and analyzed 
with reference to its various modes of expression. Holderlin 
is the idealist, Lenau exhibits the profoundly pathetic side of 
Weltschmerz, while Heine is its satirist. They have been con- 
sidered in this order, because they represent three progressive 
stages of Weltschmerz viewed as a psychological process : 
Holderlin naive, Lenau self-conscious, Heine endeavoring to 
conceal his melancholy beneath the disguise of self-irony. 

It is a pleasure to tender my grateful acknowledgments to my 
former Professors, Calvin Thomas and William H. Carpenter 
of Columbia University, and Camillo von Klenze and Starr 
Willard Cutting of the University of Chicago, under whose 
stimulating direction and never-failing assistance my graduate 
studies were carried on. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter I — Introduction i 

Chapter II — Holderlin g 

Chapter III — Lenau -35 

Chapter IV — Heine 59 

Chapter V — Bibliography 85 



CHAPTER I 

Introduction 

The purpose of the following study is to examine closely 
certain German authors of modern times, whose lives and writ- 
ings exemplify in an unusually striking degree that peculiar 
phase of lyric feeling which has characterized German liter- 
ature, often in a more or less epidemic form, since the days of 
"Werther," and to which, at an early period in the nineteenth 
century, was assigned the significant name "Weltschmerz." 

With this side of the poet under investigation, there must of 
necessity be an enquiry, not only into his writings, his expressed 
feelings, but also his physical and mental constitution on the 
one hand, and into his theory of existence in general on the 
other. Psychology and philosophy then are the two adjacent 
fields into which it may become necessary to pursue the subject 
in hand, and for this reason it is only fair to call attention to 
the difficulties which surround the student of literature in dis- 
cussing philosophical ideas or psychological phenomena. In- 
trepid indeed would it be for him to attempt a final judgment in 
these bearings of his subject, where wise men have differed and 
doctors have disagreed. 

Although sometimes loosely used as synonyms, it is necessary 
to note that there is a well-defined distinction between Welt- 
schmerz and pessimism. Weltschmerz may be denned as the 
poetic expression of an abnormal sensitiveness of the feelings to 
the moral and physical evils and misery of existence — a condi- 
tion which may or may not be based upon a reasoned conviction 
that the sum of human misery is greater than the sum of human 
happiness. It is usually characterized also by a certain lack of 
will-energy, a sort of sentimental yielding to these painful emo- 
tions. It is therefore entirely a matter of "Gemut." Pessi- 
i 1 



mism, on the other hand, purports to be a theory of existence, 
the result of deliberate philosophic argument and investigation, 
by which its votaries have reached the dispassionate conclusion 
that there is no real good or pleasure in the world that is not 
clearly outweighed by evil or pain, and that therefore self- 
destruction, or at least final annihilation is the consummation 
devoutly to be wished. 

James Sully, in his elaborate treatise on Pessimism, 1 divides 
it, however, into reasoned and unreasoned Pessimism, including 
Weltschmerz under the latter head. This is entirely compatible 
with the definition of Weltschmerz which has been attempted 
above. But it is interesting to note the attitude of the pessi- 
mistic school of philosophy toward this unreasoned pessimism. 
It emphatically disclaims any interest in or connection with it, 
and describes all those who are afflicted with the malady as 
execrable fellows — to quote Hartmann — : "Klageweiber mann- 
lichen und weiblichen Geschlechts, welche am meisten zur Dis- 
creditierung des Pessimismus beigetragen haben, die sich in 
ewigem Lamento ergehen, und entweder unaufhorlich in 
Thranen schwimmen, oder bitter wie Wermut und Essig, sich 
selbst und andern das Dasein noch mehr vergallen; eine jam- 
merliche Situation des Stimmungspessimismus, der sie nicht 
leben und nicht sterben lasst." 2 And yet Hartmann him- 
self does not hesitate to admit that this very condition of 
individual Weltschmerz, or "Zerrissenheit," is a necessary 
and inevitable stage in the progress of the mind toward that 
clarified universal Weltschmerz which is based upon theoretical 
insight, namely pessimism in its most logical sense. This being 
granted, we shall not be far astray in assuming that it is also 
the stage to which the philosophic pessimist will sometimes 
revert, when a strong sense of his own individuality asserts 
itself. 

If we attempt a classification of Weltschmerz with regard to 
its essence, or, better perhaps, with regard to its origin, we shall 
find that the various types may be classed under one of two 

1 "Pessimism, a History and a Criticism," London, 1877. 

2 Ed. von Hartmann: "Zur Geschichte und Begriindung des Pessimismus," 
Leipzig, Hermann Haacke, p. 187. 



heads : either as cosmic or as egoistic. The representatives of 
cosmic YVeltschmerz are those poets whose first concern is not 
their personal fate, their own unhappiness, it may be, but who 
see first and foremost the sad fate of humanity and regard their 
own misfortunes merely as a part of the common destiny. The 
representatives of the second type are those introspective 
natures who are first and chiefly aware of their own misery 
and finally come to regard it as representative of universal evil. 
The former proceed from the general to the particular, the latter 
from the particular to the general. But that these types must 
necessarily be entirely distinct in all cases, as Marchand 1 asserts, 
seems open to serious doubt. It is inconceivable that a poet 
into whose personal experience no shadows have fallen should 
take the woes of humanity very deeply to heart ; nor again could 
we imagine that one who has brooded over the unhappy condi- 
tion of mankind in general should never give expression to a 
note of personal sorrow. It is in the complexity of motives in 
one and the same subject that the difficulty lies in making rigid 
and sharp distinctions. In some cases YVeltschmerz may arise 
from honest conviction or genuine despair, in others it may be 
something entirely artificial, merely a cloak to cover personal 
defects. Sometimes it may even be due to a desire to pose as a 
martyr, and sometimes nothing more than an attempt to ape the 
prevailing fashion. To these types Wilhelm Scherer adds 
''Miissigganger, welche sich die Zeit mit iibler Laune vertreiben, 
missvergnugte Lyriker, deren Gedichte nicht mehr gelesen wer- 
den, und Spatzenkopfe, welche den Pessimismus fiir besonderen 
Tiefsinn halten und um jeden Preis tiefsinnig erscheinen 
wollen." 2 

But it is with YVeltschmerz in its outward manifestations as 
it finds expression in the poet's writings, that we shall be chiefly 
concerned in the following pages. And here the subdivisions, 
if we attempt to classify, must be almost as numerous as the 
representatives themselves. In Holderlin we have the ardent 
Hellenic idealist; Lenau gives expression to all the pathos of 

1 "Les Poetes Lyriques de l'Autriche," Paris, 1886, p. 293. 

: "Vortrage und Aufsatze zur Geschichte des geistigen Lebens in Deutschland 
und Oesterreich," Berlin, 1874, p. 413. 



Weltschmerz, Heine is its satirist, the misanthrope, while in 
Raabe we even have a pessimistic humorist. 

This brief list needs scarcely be supplemented by other names 
of poets of melancholy, such as Reinhold Lenz, Heinrich von 
Kleist, Robert Southey, Byron, Leopardi, in order to command 
our attention by reason of the tragic fate which ended the lives 
of nearly all of these men, the most frequent and the most ter- 
rible being that of insanity. It is of course a matter of common 
knowledge that chronic melancholy or the persistent brooding 
over personal misfortune is an almost inevitable preliminary to 
mental derangement. And when this melancholy takes root in 
the finely organized mind of genius, it is only to be expected 
that the result will be even more disastrous than in the case of 
the ordinary mind. Lombrost) holds the opinion that if men of 
genius are not all more or less insane, that is, if the "spheres 
of influence" of genius and insanity do not actually overlap, 
they are at least contiguous at many points, so that the 
transition from the former to the latter is extremely easy and 
even natural. But genius in itself is not an abnormal mental 
condition. It does not even consist of an extraordinary mem- 
ory, vivid imagination, quickness of judgment, or of a combi- 
nation of all of these. Kant defines genius as the talent of 
invention. Originality and productiveness are the fundamental 
elements of genius. And it is an almost instinctive force which 
urges the author on in his creative work. In the main his 
activity is due less to free will than to this inner compulsion. 

"Ich halte diesen Drang vergebens auf, 
Der Tag und Nacht in meinem Busen wechselt. 
Wenn ich nicht sinnen oder dichten soil, 
So ist das Leben mir kein Leben mehr," 

says Goethe's Tasso. 1 If this impulse of genius is embodied in 
a strong physical organism, as for example in the case of 
Shakespeare and Goethe, there need be no detriment to physical 
health; otherwise, and especially if there is an inherited ten- 
dency to disease, there is almost sure to be a physical collapse. 
Specialists in the subject have pointed out that violent passions 
are even more potent in producing mental disease than mere 

1 Act 5. Sc. 2. 



intellectual over-exertion. And these are certainly character- 
istic in a very high degree of the mind of genius. It has often 
been remarked that it is the corona spinosa of genius to feel all 
pain more intensely than do other men. Schopenhauer says 
"der, in welchem der Genius lebt, leidet am meisten." It is 
only going a step further then, when Hamerling writes to his 
friend Moser : "Schliesslich ist es doch nur der Kranke, der 
sich das Leid der ganzen Welt zu Herzen nimmt." 

Radestock, in his study "Genie und Wahnsinn," mentions and 
elaborates among others the following points of resemblance 
between the mind of genius and the insane mind : an abnormal 
activity of the imagination, very rapid succession of ideas, ex- 
treme concentration of thought upon a single subject or idea, 
and lastly, what would seem the cardinal point, a weakness of 
will-energy, the lack of that force which alone can serve to 
bring under control all these other unruly elements and give 
balance to what must otherwise be an extremely one-sided 
mechanism. Here again the exception may be taken to prove 
the rule. It is not too much, I think, to assert that Goethe 
could never have become so uniquely great, not even through 
the splendid versatility of his genius, but for that incomparable 
self-control, which he made the watchword of his life. And in 
the case of the poet of Weltschmerz the presence or absence of 
this quality may even decide whether he shall rise superior to 
his beclouded condition or perish in the gloom. The con- 
clusion at which Radestock arrives is that genius, as the 
expression of the most intense mental activity, occupies the 
middle ground, as it were, between the normal healthy state on 
the one hand, and the abnormal, pathological state on the other, 
and has without doubt many points of contact with mental dis- 
ease; and that although the elements which genius has in 
common with insanity may not be strong enough in themselves 
to induce the transition from the former to the latter state, yet 
when other aggravating causes are added, such as physical 
disease, violent emotions or passions, overwork, the pressure or 
distress of outward circumstances, the highly gifted individual 
is much more liable to cross the line of demarkation between 
the two mental states than is the average mind, which is more 



remote from that line. If this can be asserted of genius in 
general, it must be even more particularly and widely applicable 
in reference to a combination of genius and Weltschmerz. We 
shall find pathetic examples in the first two types selected for 
examination. 

Having thus introduced the subject in its most general bear- 
ings and aspects, it remains for us to review briefly its histor- 
ical background. 

Weltschmerz is essentially a symptom of a period of conflict, 
of transition. The powerful reaction which marks the 
eighteenth century — a reaction against all traditional intel- 
lectual authority, and a struggle for the emancipation of the 
individual, of research, of inspiration and of genius — reached 
its high-water mark in Germany in the seventies. But with 
the unrestrained outbursts of the champions of Storm and 
Stress the problem was by no means solved ; there remained the 
basic conflict between the idea of personal liberty and the 
strait- jacket of Frederician absolutism, the conflict between 
the dynastic and the national idea of the state. Should the 
individual yield a blind, unreasoned submission to the state as 
to a divinely instituted arbitrary authority, good or bad, or was 
the state to be regarded as the conscious and voluntary cooper- 
ation of its subjects for the general good? It was, moreover, 
a time not only of open and active revolt, as represented by the 
spirit of Klinger, but also of great emotional stirrings, and sen- 
timental yearnings of such passive natures as Holty. Rous- 
seau's plea for a simplified and more natural life had exerted a 
mighty influence. And what has a most important bearing 
upon the relation between these intellectual currents and Welt- 
schmerz — these minds were lacking in the discipline implied in 
our modern scientific training. Scientific exactness of think- 
ing had not become an integral part of education. Hence the 
difference between the pessimism of Ibsen and the romantic 
Weltschmerz of these uncritical minds. 

In accounting for the tremendous effect produced by his 
"Werther," Goethe compares his work to the bit of fuse which 
explodes the mine, and says that the shock of the explosion was 
so great because the young generation of the day had already 



undermined itself, and its members now burst forth individ- 
ually with their exaggerated demands, unsatisfied passions and 
imaginary sufferings. 1 And in estimating the influences which 
had prepared the way for this mental disposition, Goethe em- 
phasizes the influence of English literature. Young's "Night 
Thoughts," Gray's "Elegy," Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," 
even "Hamlet" and his monologues haunted all minds. 
"Everyone knew the principal passages by heart, and everyone 
believed he had a right to be just as melancholy as the Prince 
of Denmark, even though he had seen no ghost and had no 
royal father to avenge." Finally Ossian had provided an emi- 
nently suitable setting, — under the darkly lowering sky the 
endless gray heath, peopled with the shadowy forms of de- 
parted heroes and withered maidens. To quote the substance 
of Goethe's criticism : 2 Amid such influences and surround- 
ings, occupied with fads and studies of this sort, lacking all in- 
centive from without to any important activity and confronted 
by the sole prospect of having to drag out a humdrum existence, 
men began to reflect with a sort of sullen exultation upon the 
possibility of departing this life at will, and to find in this 
thought a scant amelioration of the ills and tedium of the times. 
This disposition was so general that "Werther" itself exerted 
a powerful influence, because it everywhere struck a responsive 
chord and publicly and tangibly exhibited the true inwardness 
of a morbid youthful illusion. 3 

Nor did the dawning nineteenth century bring relief. No 
other period of Prussian history, says Heinrich von Treitschke, 4 
is wrapped in so deep a gloom as the first decade of the reign 
of Frederick William III. It was a time rich in hidden intel- 
lectual forces, and yet it bore the stamp of that uninspired 
philistinism which is so abundantly evidenced by the barren 

1 "Gceth.es Werke," Weimar ed. Vol. 28, p. 22"j f. 

2 Ibid., p. 216 f. 

3 In view of Goethe's own words, then, the caution of a recent critic (Felix 
Melchior in Lift. Forsch. XXVII Heft, Berlin, 1903) against applying the term 
Weltschmerz to "Werther," would seem to miss the mark entirely. Werther is a 
type, just as truly as is Faust, though in a smaller way, and the malady which he 
typifies has its ultimate origin in the development of public life, — the very condi- 
tion which this critic insists upon as a mark of Weltschmerz in the proper appli- 
cation of the term. 

4 "Historische und politische Aufsatze," Leipzig, 1897. Vol. 4. 



commonplace character of its architecture and art. Genius 
there was, indeed, but never were its opportunities for public 
usefulness more limited. It was as though the greatness of the 
days of the second Frederick lay like a paralyzing weight upon 
this generation. And this oppressing sense of impotence was 
followed, after the Napoleonic Wars, by the bitterness of dis- 
appointment, all the more keenly felt by reason of this first 
reawakening of the national consciousness. Great had been 
the expectations, enormous the sacrifice ; exceedingly small was 
the gain to the individual. 1 And the resultant dissonance was 
the same as that to which Alfred de Musset gave expression in 
the words : "The malady of the present century is due to two 
causes; the people who have passed through 1793 and 1814 
bear in their hearts two wound's. All that was is no more; all 
that will be is not yet. Do not hope to find elsewhere the 
secret of our ills." 2 

This then in briefest outline is the transition from the cen- 
tury of individualism and autocracy to the nineteenth century 
of democracy. Small wonder that the struggle claimed its 
victims in those individuals who, unable to find a firm basis of 
conviction and principle, vacillated constantly between instinc- 
tive adherence to old traditions, and unreasoned inclination to 
the new order of things. 

1 As early as 1797 Holderlin's Hyperion laments: "Mein Geschaft auf Erden 
ist aus. Ich bin voll Willens an die Arbeit gegangen, habe geblutet daruber, und 
die Welt um keinen Pfennig reicher gemacht." ("Holderlin's gesammelte Dich- 
tungen, herausgegeben von B. Litzmann," Stuttgart, Cotta, undated. Vol. II, p. 
68.) Several decades later Heine writes: "Ich kann mich iiber die Siege meiner 
liebsten Ueberzeugungen nicht recht freuen, da sie mir gar zu viel gekostet haben. 
Dasselbe mag bei manchem ehrlichen Manne der Fall sein, und es tragt viel bei zu 
der grossen diisteren Verstimmung der Gegenwart." (Brief vom 21 April, 1851, an 
Gustav Kolb; Werke, Karpeles ed. Vol. IX, p. 378.) 

2 "Confession d'un enfant du siecle." CEuvres compl. Paris, 1888 (Charpen- 
tier). Vol. VIII, p. 24. 



CHAPTER II 

Holderlin 

A case such as that of Holderlin, subject as he was from the 
time of his boyhood to melancholy, and ending in hopeless in- 
sanity, at once suggests the question of heredity. Little or 
nothing is known concerning his remote ancestors. His great- 
grandfather had been administrator of a convent at Grossbott- 
war, and died of dropsy of the chest at the age of forty-seven. 
His grandfather had held a similar position as "Klosterhof- 
meister und geistlicher Verwalter" at Lauffen, to which his 
son, the poet's father, succeeded. An apoplectic stroke ended 
his life at the early age of thirty-six. In regard to Holderlin's 
maternal ancestors, our information is even more scant, though 
we know that both his grandmother and his mother lived to a 
ripe old age. From the poet's references to them we judge 
them to have been entirely normal types of intelligent, lovable 
women, gifted with a great deal of good practical sense. The 
only striking thing is the premature death of Holderlin's great- 
grandfather and father. But in view of the nature of their 
stations in life, in which they may fairly be supposed to have 
led more than ordinarily sober and well-ordered lives, there 
seems to be no ground whatever for assuming that Holderlin's 
Weltschmerz owed its inception in any degree to hereditary 
tendencies, notwithstanding Hermann Fischer's opinion to the 
contrary. 1 There is no sufficient reason to assume "erbliche 
Belastung," and there are other sufficient causes without merely 
guessing at such a possibility. 

But while there are no sufficient historical grounds for the 
supposition that he brought the germ of his subsequent mental 
disease with him in his birth, we cannot fail to observe, even in 

1 Am. f. d. Alt., vol. 22, p. 212-218. 



10 

the child, certain natural traits, which, being allowed to develop 
unchecked, must of necessity hasten and intensify the gloom 
which hung over his life. To his deep thoughtfulness was 
added an abnormal sensitiveness to all external influences. 
Like the delicate anemone, he recoiled and withdrew within 
himself when touched by the rougher material things of life. 1 
He himself poetically describes his absentmindedness when a 
boy, and calls himself "ein Traumer" ; and a dreamer he 
remained all his life. It seems to have been this which first 
brought him into discord with the world : 

Oft sollt' ich stracks in meine Schule wandern, 
Doch ehe sich der Traumer es versah, 
So hatt' er in den Garten sich verirrt, 
Und sass behaglich-unter den Oliven, 
Und baute Flotten, schifft' ins hohe Meer. 

Dies kostete mich tausend kleine Leiden, 
Verzeihlich war es immer, wenn mich oft 
Die Kliigeren, mit herzlichem Gelachter 
Aus meiner seligen Ekstase schreckten, 
Doch unaussprechlich wehe that es mir. 2 

If ever a boy needed a strong fatherly hand to guide him, to 
teach him self-reliance and practical sense, it was this dreamy, 
tender-spirited child. 3 The love and sympathy which his 
mother bestowed upon him was not calculated to fit him for 
the rugged experiences of life, and while probably natural and 
pardonable, it was nevertheless extremely unfortunate that the 
boy was unconsciously encouraged to be and to remain a "Mut- 
tersohnchen." But even with his peculiar trend of disposition, 
the result might not have been an unhappy one, had the course 
of his life not brought him more than an ordinary share of mis- 
fortune. This overtook him early in life, for when but two 

1 In a letter to his mother he writes: "Freilich ist's mir auch angeboren, dass 
ich alles schwerer zu Herzen nehme." ("Friedrich Holderlins Leben, in Briefen 
von und an Holderlin, von Carl C. T. Litzmann," Berlin, 1890, p. 27. Hereafter 
quoted as "Brief e."). 

2 "Holderlins gesammelte Dichtungen, herausgegeben von B. Litzmann," Stutt- 
gart, Cotta (hereafter quoted as "Werke"). Vol. II, p. 9. 

3 It is a reminiscence of Holderlin's boyhood which finds expression in the 
words of Hyperion: "Ich war aufgewachsen, wie eine Rebe ohne Stab, und die 
wilden Ranken breiteten richtungslos iiber dem Boden sich aus." Werke, Vol. II, 
p. 72. 



11 

years of age his father died. His widowed mother now lived 
for a few years in complete retirement with her two children — 
the poet's sister Henrietta having been born just a few weeks 
after his father's demise. But it was not long before death 
again entered the household and robbed it of Holderlin's aunt, 
his deceased father's sister, who was herself a widow and the 
faithful companion of the poet's mother. When the latter 
found herself again alone with her two little ones, whose care 
was weighing heavily upon her, she consented to become the 
wife of her late husband's friend, Kammerrat Gock, and accom- 
panied him to his home in the little town of Niirtingen on the 
Neckar. But this re-established marital happiness was to be of 
brief duration, for in 1779 her second husband died, and the 
mother was now left with four little children to care and pro- 
vide for. 

The frequency with which death visited the family during 
his childhood and youth, familiarized him at an early age with 
scenes of sorrow and grief. No doubt he was too young when 
his father died to comprehend the calamity that had come upon 
the household, but it was not many months before he knew the 
meaning of his mother's tears, not only for his father, but also 
for his sister, who died in her infancy. Referring to his 
father's death, he writes in one of his early poems, "Ernst 
und Jetzt" : x 

Einst schlugst du mir so ruhig, emportes Herz! 



Einst in des Vaters Schoosse, des liebenden 
Geliebten Vaters, — aber der Wiirger kam, 
Wir weinten, flehten, doch der Wiirger 
Schnellte den Pfeil, und es sank die Sttitze. 

At his tenderest and most impressionable age, the boy was thus 
made sadly aware of the fleetingness of human life and the 
pains of bereavement. We cannot wonder then at finding these 
impressions reflected in his most juvenile poetic attempts. His 
poem "Das menschliche Leben," written at the age of fifteen, 
begins : 

Menschen, Menschen! was ist euer Leben, 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 86. 



12 

Eure Welt, die thranenvolle Welt! 
Dieser Schauplatz, kann er Freude geben 
Wo sich Trauern nicht dazu gesellt? 1 

But a time of still greater unhappiness was in store for him 
when he left his home at the age of fourteen to enter the con- 
vent school at Denkendorf, where he began his preparation for 
a theological course. A more direct antithesis to all that his 
body and soul yearned for and needed for their proper develop- 
ment could scarcely have been devised than that which existed 
in the chilling atmosphere and rigorous discipline of the mon- 
astery. He had not even an incentive to endure hardships for 
the sake of what lay beyond, for it was merely in passive sub- 
mission to his mother's wish that he had decided to enter holy 
orders. And now, clad in a_sombre monkish gown, deprived 
of all freedom of thought or movement and forced into com- 
panionship with twenty-five or thirty fellows of his own age, 
who nearly all misunderstood him, Holderlin felt himself 
wretched indeed. "War' ich doch ewig feme von diesen 
Mauern des Elends !" he writes in a poem at Maulbronn in 
1787. 2 There was for him but one way of escape. It was to 
isolate himself as much as possible from the world of harsh 
reality about him, to be alone, and there in his solitude to con- 
struct for himself an ideal world of fancy, a poetic dreamland. 
This mental habit not only remained with him as he grew into 
manhood, it may be said to have been through life one of his 
most distinguishing characteristics. It would be impossible 
to make room here for all the passages in his poems and letters 
of this period, which reflect his love of solitude and his habit 
of retreating into a world of his own imagining. His letters 
to his friend Nast almost invariably contain some expression 
of his heart-ache. "Bilfinger ist wohl mein Freund, aber es 
geht ihm zu gliicklich, als dass er sich nach mir umsehen 
mochte. Du wirst mich schon verstehen — er ist immer lustig, 
ich hange immer den Kopf." 3 Another letter begins : "Wieder 
eine Stunde wegphantasiert ! — dass es doch so schlechte 
Menschen giebt, unter meinen Cameraden so elende Kerls — 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 36. 

2 "Auf einer Heide geschrieben," Werke, Vol. I, p. 44. 

3 Briefe, p. 27. 



13 

wann mich die Freundschaft nicht zuweilen wieder gut machte, 
so hatt' ich mich manchmal schon lieber an jeden andern Ort 
gewiinscht, als unter Menschengesellschaft. — Wann ich nur 
auch einmal etwas recht Lustiges schreiben konnte ! Nur 
Gedult ! 's wird kommen — hofF ich, oder — oder hab' ich dann 
nicht genug getragen? Erfuhr ich nicht schon als Bube, was 
den Mann seufzen machen wurde? und als Jiingling, geht's da 
besser? — Du lieber Gott! bin ich's denn allein? jeder andre 
gliicklicher als ich? Und was hab' ich dann gethan?" 1 There 
is a world of pathos in this helpless cry of pain, with its sugges- 
tion of retributive fate. A poem of 1788, "Die Stille," written 
at Maulbronn, epitomizes almost everything that we have thus 
far noted as to Holderlin's nature. He goes back in fancy to 
the days of his childhood, describing his lonely rambles, from 
which he would return in the moonlight, unmindful of his late- 
ness for the evening meal, at which he would hastily eat of that 
which the others had left : 

Schlich mich, wenn ich satt gegessen, 
Weg von meinem lustigen Geschwisterpaar. 

O! in meines kleinen Stubchens Stille 

War mir dann so iiber alles wohl, 

Wie im Tempel war mir's in der Nachte Hiille, 

Wann so einsam von dem Turm die Glocke scholl. 

Als ich weggerissen von den Meinen 

Aus dem lieben elterlichen Haus 

Unter Fremden irrte, wo ich nimmer weinen 

Durfte, in das bunte Weltgewirr hinaus, 

O wie pflegtest du den armen Jungen, 
Teure, so mit Mutterzartlichkeit, 
Wann er sich im Weltgewirre mud gerungen, 
In der lieben, wehmutsvollen Einsamkeit. 2 

This love of solitude is carried to the extreme in his contem- 
plation of a hermit's life. In a letter to Nast he says : "Heute 
ging ich so vor mich hin, da fiel mir ein, ich wolle nach vollen- 
deten Universitats Jahren Einsiedler werden — und der Gedanke 

1 Briefe, p. 29. 

2 Werke, Vol. I, p. 53 f. 



14 

gefiel mir so wohl, erne ganze Stunde, glaub' ich, war ich in 
meiner Fantasie Einsiedler." 1 And although he never became 
a hermit, this is the final disposition which he makes of himself 
in his "Hyperion." 

These habits of thought and feeling, formed in boyhood, 
could lead to only one result. He became less and less quali- 
fied to comprehend and to grapple with the practical problems 
and difficulties of life, and entered young manhood and the 
struggle for existence at a tremendous disadvantage. 

Another trait of his character which served to intensify his 
subsequent disappointments, was the strong ambition which 
early filled his soul. He aspired to high achievements in his 
chosen field of art. In a letter to Louise Nast, written prob- 
ably about the beginning of. 1790, he makes the confession: 
"Der uniiberwindliche Trubsinn in mir ist wohl nicht ganz, 
doch meist — unbefriedigter Ehrgeiz." 2 The mere lad of 
seventeen had scarcely learned to admire Klopstock, when he 
speaks of his own "kampfendes Streben nach Klopstocks- 
grosse," and exclaims : "Hinan den herrlichen Ehrenpfad ! 
Hinan ! im gluhenden kuhnen Traum, sie zu erreichen !" 3 It is 
remarkable to note how this fancy of a dream-life becomes 
fixed in Holderlin's mind and reappears in almost every poem. 
Closely allied to this idea is that of a "gliickliche Trunkenheit," 
and expressions like "wie ein Gottertraum das Alter schwand," 
"liebetrunken," "Wie ein Traum entfliehen Ewigkeiten," "sie- 
gestrunken," "siisse, kiihne Trunkenheit," "trunken dammert 
die Seele mir," can be found on almost every page of his shorter 
poems. Hyperion expresses himself on one occasion in the 
words : "O ein Gott ist der Mensch, wenn er traumt, ein 
Bettler, wenn er nachdenkt, und wenn die Begeisterung hin ist, 
steht er da, wie ein missrathener Sohn, den der Vater aus dem 
Hause stiess, und betrachtet die armlichen Pfennige, die ihm 
das Mitleid auf den Weg gab," 4 which further illustrates the 
extravagant idealism by which he allowed himself to be carried 
away, and the etherial and thoroughly unpractical trend of his 

1 Briefe, p. 36. 

2 Briefe, p. 120. 

3 "Mein Vorsatz," Werke, Vol. I, p. 44. 

4 Werke, Vol. II, p. 69. 



15 

mind. The flights of fancy of which Holderlin is capable are 
well illustrated by another passage in "Hyperion." Referring 
to Hyperion's conversation with Alabanda, he says : "Ich war 
hingerissen von unendlichen Hoffnungen, Gotterkrafte trugen 
wie ein Wolkchen mich fort." 1 These facts have a direct bear- 
ing upon Holderlin's Weltschmerz, inasmuch as it was just 
this unequal and unsuccessful struggle of the idealist with the 
stern realities of life that brought about the catastrophe which 
wrought his ruin. 

And just as his ideals are vague and abstract, so too are the 
expressions of his Weltschmerz. It needs no concrete idea to 
arouse his enthusiasm to its highest pitch. Thus Hyperion ex- 
claims : "Der Gott in uns, dem die Unendlichkeit zur Bahn 
sich offnet, soil stehen und harren, bis der Wurm ihm aus dem 
Wege geht ? Nein ! nein ! man fragt nicht, ob ihr wollt ! ihr 
wollt ja nie — ihr Knechte und Barbaren ! Euch will man auch 
nicht bessern, denn es ist umsonst! Man will nur dafiir 
sorgen, dass ihr dem Siegeslauf der Menschheit aus dem Wege 
geht !" 2 It is in the form of lofty generalities such as these, 
and seldom with reference to practical details, that Holderlin's 
longings find expression. 

Entirely consistent with this idealism is the nature of his 
love, ardent, but etherial, "iibersinnlich." This is reflected 
also in his lyrics, which are statuesque and beautiful, but lack- 
ing in passion and sensuous charm. Holderlin's earliest love- 
affair, that with Louise Nast, is important for his Weltschmerz 
only in its bearing upon the development of his general char- 
acter. This influence was a twofold one : in the first place his 
sweetheart was herself inclined to a sort of visionary mysticism, 
and therefore had an unwholesome influence upon the youth, 
who had already been carried too far in that direction. She 
too was a lover of solitude and wrote her letters to him in the 
stillness of the night, when all others were asleep. There can 
be no doubt that she had at least some share in determining his 
mental activity, especially his reading. In one of his earliest 
letters to her he writes : "Weil Du den Don Carlos liest, will 

1 Werke, Vol. II, p. 90. 
2 Werke, Vol. II, p. 86. 



16 

ich ihn auch lesen." 1 It was during this time too that that he 
became so ardent an admirer of Schubart and Ossian. "Da 
leg' ich meinen Ossian weg und komme zu Dir," he writes in 
1788 to his friend Nast. "Ich habe meine Seele geweidet an 
den Helden des Barden, habe mit ihm getrauert, wann er 
trauert iiber sterbende Madchen." 2 There is not a sensuous 
note in all Holderlin's poems or letters to Louise. Typical are 
the lines which he addresses to her on his departure from Maul- 
bronn : 

Lass sie drohen, die Sturme, die Leiden, 

Lass trennen — der Trennung Jahre 

Sie trennen uns nicht! 

Sie trennen uns nicht! 

Denn mein bist du! Und iiber das Grab hinaus 

Soil sie dauren, die-unzertrennbare Liebe. 

O! wenn's einst da ist 

Das grosse selige Jenseits, 

Wo die Krone dem leidenden Pilger, 

Die Palme dem Sieger blinkt, 

Dann Freundin — lohnet auch Freundschaft — 

Auch Freundschaft der Ewige. 3 

The second bearing which his relations to Louise have upon 
his Weltschmerz lies in the fact that his love ended in disap- 
pointment. This is true not only of this particular episode, not 
only of all his love-affairs, but it may even be said that disap- 
pointment was the fate to which he found himself doomed in 
all his aspirations. And in the persistency with which this 
evil angel pursued his footsteps through life may be found 
one of the chief causes of the early collapse of his faculties. 
What David Miiller 4 and Hermann Fischer 5 have said in their 
essays in regard to this point — that Holderlin did not become 
insane because his life was a succession of unsatisfactory situa- 
tions and painful disappointments, but because he had not the 
strength to work himself out of these situations into more 
favorable ones — states only half the case. True, a stronger 

1 Briefe, p. 49. 

2 Briefe, p. 50. 

3 Werke, Vol. I, p. 74. 

4 "Friedrich Holderlin, Eine Studie," Preuss. Jahrb., 1866, p. 548-568. 
6 Am. f. d. Altertum, Vol. 22, p. 212-218. 



17 

mental organization might have overcome these or even greater 
difficulties ; Schiller, Herder, Fichte are examples ; but not 
all of Holderlin's failures and disappointments were the result 
of his weakness, and so while it is right to state that a stronger 
and more robust nature would have conquered in the fight, it 
is also fair to say that Holderlin would have had a good 
chance of winning, had fortune been more kind. For this 
reason these external influences must be reckoned with as an 
important cause of his Weltschmerz and subsequently of his 
insanity. 

This suggests an interesting point of comparison — if I may 
be permitted to anticipate somewhat — with Lenau, the second 
type selected. Holderlin earnestly pursued happiness and con- 
tentment, but it eluded him at every step. Lenau on the con- 
trary reached a point in his Weltschmerz where he refused to 
see anything in life but pain, wilfully thrusting from him even 
such happiness as came within his reach. 

We may postpone any detailed reference to Holderlin's rela- 
tions with Susette Gontard, which were vastly more important 
in their influence upon the poet's character and Weltschmerz, 
until we come to the discussion of his "Hyperion," of which 
Susette, under the pseudonym of Diotima, forms one of the 
central figures. 

To speak of all the disappointments which fell to Holder- 
lin's lot would practically require the writing of his biography 
from the time of his graduation from Tubingen to his return 
from Bordeaux, almost the entire period of his sane manhood. 
Unsuccessful in his first position as a tutor, and unable, after 
having abandoned this, to provide even a meagre living for 
himself with his pen, his migration to Frankfort to the house 
of the merchant Gontard at last gave him a hope of better 
things, but a hope which soon proved vain. Following close 
upon these disappointments was his failure to carry out a 
project which he had long cherished, of establishing a literary 
journal ; then came his dismissal from a situation which he had 
just entered upon in Switzerland. On his return he wrote to 
Schiller for help and advice, and his failure to receive a reply 
grieved him deeply. We can only surmise that it was a cruel 



18 

disappointment, finally, which caused his sudden departure 
from Bordeaux, and brought him back a mental wreck to his 
mother's home. Even as early as 1788 Holderlin complains 
bitterly in the poem "Der Lorbeer," in which he eulogizes the 
poets Klopstock and Young and expresses his own ambition 
to aspire to their greatness : 

Schon so manche Friichte schoner Keime 
Logen grausam mir ins Angesicht. 1 

As the years passed, this feeling of disappointment and disil- 
lusion became more and more intense and bitter. A stanza 
from one of his more mature poems (1795) "An die Natur," 
will serve to illustrate the sentiment which pervades almost all 
his writings : 

Tot ist nun, die mich erzog und stillte, 
Tot ist nun die jugendliche Welt, 
Diese Brust, die einst ein Himmel fiillte, 
Tot und diirftig wie ein Stoppelfeld; 
Ach es singt der Fruhling meinen Sorgen 
Noch, wie einst, ein freundlich trostend Lied, 
Aber hin ist meines Lebens Morgen, 
Meines Herzens Fruhling ist verbliiht. 2 

In close causal connection with Holderlin's Weltschmerz is 
his belief that his life is ruled by an inexorable fate whose play- 
thing he is. "Wenn hinfort mich das Schicksal ergreift, und 
von einem Abgrund in den andern mich wirft, und alle Krafte 
in mir ertrankt und alle Gedanken," Hyperion exclaims. 3 He 
goes even further, and conceives the idea of a sacrifice to Fate. 
Thus he makes Alabanda say near the close of "Hyperion :" 
"Ach ! weil kein Gliick ist ohne Opfer, nimm als Opfer mich, o 
Schicksal an, und lass die Liebenden in ihrer Freude." 4 Wil- 
helm Scherer calls attention to Gervinus' remark that new intel- 
lectual tendencies which call for unaccustomed and unusual 
mental effort often prove disastrous to single individuals, and 
says : "Holderlin war also ein Opfer der Erneuerung des 
deutschen Lebens — seltsam, wie der Gedanke des Opfers als 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 7S- 

2 Werke, Vol. I, p. 1 46. 

3 Werke, Vol. II, p. 107. 
* Werke, Vol. II, p. 188. 



19 

ein hoher und herrlicher ihn in alien seinen Gedichten viel be- 
schaftigt hat." 1 But the poet does not apply this fatalism only 
to himself, to the individual ; he widens its influence to human- 
ity in general. "Wir sprechen von unserm Herzen, unsern 
Planen, als waren sie unser," says Hyperion, "und es ist doch 
eine fremde Gewalt, die uns herumwirft und ins Grab legt, 
wie es ihr gefallt, und von der wir nicht wissen, von wannen sie 
kommt, noch wohin sie geht :" 2 Perhaps nowhere better than 
in Hyperion's "Schicksalslied" does he give poetic expression to 
this thought. Omitting the first stanza it reads thus : 

Schicksallos wie der schlafende 
Saugling atmen die Himmlischen; 
Keusch bewahrt 

In bescheidener Knospe, 
Bliihet ewig 
Ihnen der Geist, 
Und die seligen Augen 
Blicken in stiller 
Ewiger Klarheit. 

Doch uns ist gegeben, 
Auf keiner Statte zu ruhn, 
Es schwinden, es fallen 
Die leidenden Menschen 
Blindlings von einer 
Stunde zur andern, 
Wie Wasser von Klippe 
Zu Klippe geworfen, 

Jahrlang ins Ungewisse hinab. 3 

The fundamental difference between Holderlin's "Anschauung" 
and Goethe's is at once apparent when we recall the "Lied der 
Parzen" from "Iphigenie." Holderlin does not bring the 
blessed Genii into any relation with mortals, but merely con- 
trasts their free and blissful existence, emphasizing their im- 
munity from Fate, to which suffering humanity is subject. But 
this humanity is represented by Holderlin characteristically as 
helpless, passive — "schwinden," "fallen," "blindlings von einer 
Stunde zur andern." Whereas the opening lines of Goethe's 

1 "Vortrage und Aufsatze," 1874, Fried. Holderlin, p. 354. 
2 Werke, Vol. II, p. 96. 
s Werke, Vol. II, p. 189. 



20 

"Parzen" strike the keynote of conflict between the gods and 
men : 

Es fiirchte die Gdtter 

Das Menschengeschlecht! 

Sie halten die Herrschaft 

In ewigen Handen 

Und konnen sie brauchen 

Wie's ihnen gefallt. 

Der fiirchte sie doppelt, 

Den je sie erheben! 

And those who come to grief at the hands of the gods, are not 
weak passive creatures, but heaven-scaling Titans. This points 
to the antipodal difference between the characters of these two 
poets, and explains in part why Goethe did not succumb to the 
sickly sentimentalism of which he rid himself in "Werther." 
The difference between yielding and striving resulted in the 
difference between an acute case of Weltschmerz in the one and 
a healthy physical and intellectual manhood in the other. 

Thus far it has been almost entirely the personal aspect of 
Holderlin's Weltschmerz and its causes that has come under 
our notice. And since he was a lyric poet, it is perhaps natural 
that the sorrows which concerned him personally should find 
most frequent expression in his verse. But notwithstanding 
the fact that this personal element is very prominent in Holder- 
lin's writings, Scherer's judgment is correct when he states: 
"Die Grundstimmung war eine tiefe Verbitterung gegen die 
Versunkenheit des Vaterlands." 1 The reason is not far to 
seek, especially when we consider the impossible demands of 
the poet's extravagant idealism. The conditions in Germany 
which had called forth the terrible arraignment of petty despot- 
ism, crushing militarism, and political rottenness generally, in 
the works of Lenz, Klinger and Schubart, had not abated. 
Schubart was one of Holderlin's earliest favorites, so that the 
latter was doubtless in this way imbued with sentiments which 
could only grow stronger under the influence of his more ma- 
ture observations and experiences. Even in his eighteenth 
year, in a poem "An die Demut," 2 he gives expression in strong 

1 Cf. op. cit., p. 352. 
2 Werke, Vol. I, p. 51- 



21 

terms to his patriotic feelings, in which his disgust with his 
faint-hearted, servile compatriots and his defiance of "Fursten- 
laune" and "Despotenblut" are plainly evident So too in 
"Mannerjubel," 1788 : 

Es glimmt in uns ein Funke der Gottlichen! 
Und diesen Funken soil aus der Mannerbrust 
Der Holle Macht uns nicht entreissen! 
Hort es, Despotengerichte, hort es I 1 

Perhaps nowhere outside of his own Wurttemberg could he 
have been more unfavorably situated in this respect. Under 
Karl Eugen (1744- 1793) the country sank into a deplorable 
condition. Regardless of the rights of individuals and com- 
munities alike, he sought in the early part of his reign to replen- 
ish his depleted purse by the most shameless measures, in order 
that he might surround himself with luxury and indulge his 
autocratic proclivities. Among his most reprehensible viola- 
tions of constitutional rights, were his bartering of privileges 
and offices and the selling of troops. These things Holderlin 
attacks in one of his youthful poems "Die Ehrsucht" (1788) : 

Um wie Konige zu prahlen, schanden 
Kleine Wiitriche ihr armes Land; 
Und um feile Ordensbander wenden 
Rate sich das Ruder aus der Hand. 2 

Another act of gross injustice which this petty tyrant perpe- 
trated, and which Holderlin must have felt very painfully, was 
the incarceration of the poet's countryman Schubart from 1777 
to 1787 in the Hohenasperg. But not only from within came 
tyrannous oppression. Following upon the coalition against 
France after the Revolution, Wurttemberg became the scene of 
bloody conflicts and the ravages of war. Under the regime of 
Friedrich Eugen (1795-97) tne French gained such a foothold 
in Wurttemberg that the country had to pay a contribution of 
four million gulden to get rid of them. These were the condi- 
tions under which Holderlin grew up into young manhood. 
But deeper than in the mere existence of these conditions 
themselves lay the cause of the poet's most abject humiliation 
and grief. It was the stoic indifference, the servile submission 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 50. 

2 Werke, Vol. I. p. 49. 



22 

with which he charged his compatriots, that called forth his bit- 
terest invectives upon their insensible heads. His own words 
will serve best to show the intensity of his feelings. In 1788 
he writes, in the poem "Am Tage der Freundschaftsfeier :" 

Da sah er (der Schwarmer) all die Schande 

Der weichlichen Teutonssohne, 

Und fluchte dem verderblichen Ausland 

Und fluchte den verdorbenen Affen des Auslands, 

Und weinte blutige Thranen, 

Dass er vielleicht noch lange 

Verweilen miisse unter diesem Geschlecht. 1 

Ten years later he treats the Germans to the following ignomin- 
ious comparison : 

Spottet ja nicht des Kinds, wenn es mit Peitsch' und Sporn 
Auf dem Rosse von Holz, mutig und gross sich dunkt. 
Denn, ihr Deutschen, auch ihr seid 
Thatenarm und gedankenvoll. 2 

With his friend Sinclair, who was sent as a delegate, he at- 
tended the congress at Rastatt in November, 1798, and here he 
made observations which no doubt resulted in the bitter char- 
acterization of his nation in the closing letters of Hyperion. 
This convention, whose chief object was the compensation of 
those German princes who had been dispossessed by the ces- 
sions to France on the left bank of the Rhine, afforded a spec- 
tacle so humiliating that it would have bowed down in shame a 
spirit even less proud and sensitive than Holderlin's. The 
French emissaries conducted themselves like lords of Germany, 
while the German princes vied with each other in acts of servil- 
ity and submission to the arrogant Frenchmen. And it was 
the apathy of the average German, as Holderlin conceived it, 
toward these and other national indignities, that caused him to 
put such bitter words of contumely into the mouth of Hy- 
perion: "Barbaren von Alters her, durch Fleiss und Wis- 
senschaft und selbst durch Religion barbarischer geworden, 
tief unfahig jedes gottlichen Gefiihls — beleidigend fiir jede gut 
geartete Seele, dumpf und harmonielos, wie die Scherben eines 
weggeworfenen Gefasses — das, mein Bellarmin ! waren meine 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 66. 

2 Werke, Vol. I, p. 165. 



23 

Troster." 1 In another letter Hyperion explains their incapac- 
ity for finer feeling and appreciation when he writes : "Neide 
die Leidensfreien nicht, die Gotzen von Holz, denen nichts man- 
gelt, weil ihre Seele so arm ist, die nichts fragen nach Regen 
und Sonnenschein, weil sie nichts haben, was der Pflege be- 
diirfte. Ja, ja, es ist recht sehr leicht, gliicklich, ruhig zu sein 
mit seichtem Herzen und eingeschranktem Geiste." 2 Their 
work he characterizes as "Stiimperarbeit/' and their virtues as 
brilliant evils and nothing more. There is nothing sacred, he 
claims, that has not been desecrated by this nation. But it is 
chiefly his own experience which he recites, when, in speaking 
of the sad plight of German poets, of those who still love the 
beautiful, he says : "Es ist auch herzzerreissend, wenn man 
eure Dichter, eure Kiinstler sieht — die Guten, sie leben in der 
■Welt, wie Fremdlinge im eigenen Hause." 3 Still more extrav- 
agantly does the poet caricature his own people when he writes : 
"Wenn doch einmal diesen Gottverlassnen einer sagte, dass bei 
ihnen nur so unvollkommen alles ist, weil sie nichts Reines 
unverdorben, nichts Heiliges unbetastet lassen mit den plumpen 
Handen — dass bei ihnen eigentlich das Leben schaal und sor- 
genschwer ist, weil sie den Genius verschmahen — und darum 
fiirchten sie auch den Tod so sehr, und leiden um des Austern- 
lebens willen alle Schmach, weil Hohres sie nicht kennen, als 
ihr Machwerk, das sie sich gestoppelt." 4 

But we should get an extremely unjust and one-sided idea of 
Holderlin's attitude toward his country from these quotations 
alone. The point which they illustrate is his growing estrange- 
ment from his own people, which in the very nature of the case 
must have had an important bearing upon his Weltschmerz. 
But his feelings in regard to Germany and the Germans were 
not all contempt. In many of his poems there is the true 
patriotic ring. It is true, we can nowhere find any clear po- 
litical program, neither could we expect one from a poet who 
was so absorbed in his own feelings, and whose ideals soared so 
high above the sphere of practical politics. In this too Hold- 

1 Werke, Vol. II, p. 198. 

2 Werke, Vol. II, p. 97. 

3 Werke, Vol. II, p. 200. 

4 Werke, Vol. II, p. 200 f. 



24 

erlin was the product of previous influences. With all their 
clamor for political upheavals, the "Sturmer und Dranger" 
never arrived at any serious or practical plan of action. Not- 
withstanding all this, the word Vaterland was always an 
inspiration to Holderlin, and it is especially gratifying to note 
that the calumny which he heaps upon the devoted heads of the 
Germans is not his last word on the subject. Nor did he ever 
lose sight of his lofty ideal of liberty for his degraded father- 
land or cease to hope for its realization. In this strain he con- 
cludes the "Hymne an die Freiheit" (1790) with a splendid 
outburst of patriotic enthusiasm : 

Dann am siissen, heisserrung'nen Ziele, 
Wenn der Ernte grosser Tag beginnt, 
Wenn verodet die Tyrannenstuhle, 
Die Tyrannenknechte Moder sind, 
Wenn im Heldenbunde meiner Bruder 
Deutsches Blut und deutsche Liebe gliiht, 
Dann, O Himmelstochter! sing ich wieder, 
Singe sterbend dir das letzte Lied. 1 

What a remarkable change is noticeable in the tone which the 
poet assumes toward his country in the lines "Gesang des 
Deutschen," written in 1799, probably after the completion of 
his "Hyperion" : 

O heilig Herz der Volker, O Vaterland! 
Allduldend gleich der schweigenden Muttererd' 
Und allverkannt, wenn schon aus deiner 
Tiefe die Fremden ihr Bestes haben. 

Du Land des hohen, ernsteren Genius! 
Du Land der Liebe! bin ich der Deine schon, 
Oft ziirnt' ich weinend, dass du immer 
Blode die eigene Seele leugnest. 2 

How much the reproach has been softened, and with what 
tender regard he strives to mollify his former bitterness ! To 
this change in his feelings, his sojourn in strange places and 
the attendant discouragements and disappointments seem to 
have contributed not a little, for in the poem "Rtickkehr in die 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 105. 

2 Werke, Vol. I, p. 196. 



25 

Heimat," written in 1800, the contempt of "Hyperion" has been 
replaced by compassion. He sees himself and his country 
linked together in the sacred companionship of suffering, con- 
sequently it can no longer be the object of his scorn. 

Wie lange ist's, O wie lange! des Kindes Ruh' 
1st hin, und hin ist Jugend, und Lieb' und Gluck, 
Doch du, mein Vaterland! du heilig 
Duldendes ! siehe, du bist geblieben. 1 

But the fact remains, nevertheless, that Holderlin from his 
early youth felt himself a stranger in his own land and among 
his own people. Some of the causes of this circumstance have 
already been discussed. The fact itself is important because 
it establishes the connection between his Weltschmerz and his 
most noteworthy characteristic as a poet, namely, his Hellenism. 
No other German poet has allowed himself to be so completely 
dominated by the Greek idea as did Holderlin. And in his 
case it may properly be called a symptom of his Weltschmerz, 
for it marks his flight from the world of stern reality into an 
imaginary world of Greek ideals. An imaginary Greek world, 
because in spite of his Hellenic enthusiasm he entertained some 
of the most un-Hellenic ideas and feelings. 

That the poet should take refuge in Greek antiquity is not 
surprising, when we consider the conditions which prevailed at 
that time in the field of learning. It was not many decades 
since the study of Latin and Roman institutions had been forced 
to yield preeminence of position in Germany to the study of 
Greek. Furthermore, his own Suabia had come to be recog- 
nized as a.- leader in the study of Greek antiquity, and in his con- 
temporaries Schiller, Hegel, Schelling, who were all country- 
men and acquaintances of his, he found worthy competitors in 
this branch of learning. His fondness for the language and 
literature of Greece goes back to his early school days, espe- 
cially at Denkendorf and Maulbronn. On leaving the latter 
school, he had the reputation among his fellow-students of 
being an excellent Hellenist, according to the report of Schwab, 
his biographer. It was while there that Holderlin as a boj' 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 214. 



26 

of seventeen first made use of the Alcaic measure in which he 
subsequently wrote so many of his poems. 

A full discussion of the technic of Holderlin's poems would 
have so remote a connection with the main topic under con- 
sideration that its introduction here would be entirely out of 
place. It will suffice, therefore, merely to indicate along broad 
lines the extent to which the Greek idea took and held posses- 
sion of the poet. 

Out of his 168 shorter poems, 126, exactly three-fourths, are 
written in the unrhymed Greek measures. 1 Those forms which 
are native are confined almost entirely to his juvenile and 
youthful compositions, and after 1797 he only once employs 
the rhymed stanza, namely, in the poem "An Landauer." 2 As 
a boy of sixteen, he wrote verses in the Alcaic and Asclepiadeian 
measures, 3 and soon acquired a considerable mastery over them. 
At seventeen he composed in the latter form his poem "An ' 
meine Freundinnen :" 

In der Stille der Nacht denket an euch mein Lied, 
Wo mein ewiger Gram jeglichen Stundenschlag, 
Welcher naher mich bringt dem 
Trauten Grabe, mit Dank begrusst. 4 

While not exhibiting the finish of expression and musical qual- 
ities of his more mature Alcaic lyrics, still it is not bad poetry 
for a boy of seventeen, and the reader feels what the boy was 
not slow to learn, that the stately movement of the Greek 
stanzas lends an added dignity to the expression of sorrow, 
which was to constitute so large a part of his poetic activity. 
As already stated, the Alcaic measure was of all the Greek 
verse-forms Holderlin's favorite, and the one most frequently 
and successfully employed by him. He is very fond of intro- 
ducing Germanic alliteration into these unrhymed stanzas, as 
the following example will illustrate : 

Und wo sind Dichter, denen der Gott es gab, 
Wie unsern Alten, freundlich und fromm zu sein, 

1 Werke, Vol. I. 

2 Werke, Vol. I, p. 234. 

8 "An die Nachtigall," "An meinen Bilfinger," Werke, Vol. I, p. 42f. 
4 Werke, Vol. I, p. 43. 



27 

Wo Weise, wie die unsern sind, die 
Kalten und Kiihnen, die unbestechbarn? 1 

The Asclepiadeian stanza he employs much less frequently, 
the Sapphic only once, and that with indifferent success. It 
was the ode, dithyramb and hymn, the serious lyric, which 
Holderlin selected as the models for his poetic fashion. In this 
purpose he was not alone, for his friend Neuffer writes to him 
in 1793, with an enthusiasm which in the intensity of expression 
common at the time, seems almost like an inspiration: "Die 
hohere Ode und der Hymnus, zwei in unsern Tagen, und viel- 
leicht in alien Zeitaltern am meisten vernachlassigte Musen ! in 
ihre Arme wollen wir uns werfen, von ihren Kiissen beseelt 
uns aufraffen. Welche Aussichten ! Dein Hymnus an die 
Kiihnheit mag Dir zum Motto dienen ! Mir gehe die Hoff- 
nung voran." 2 

But it was in the form much more than in the contents of his 
poems, that Holderlin carried out the Greek idea. Most of his 
lyrics are occasional poems, or have abstract subjects, as for 
example, "An die Stille," "An die Ehre," "An den Genius der 
Kiihnheit," and so on. Only here and there does he take a 
classic subject or introduce classic references. The truth of the 
matter is, that with all his fervid enthusiasm for Hellenic ideals, 
and with all his Greek cult, Holderlin was not the genuine Hel- 
lenist he thought himself to be. This is due to the fact that his 
turning to Greece was in its final analysis attributable rather to 
selfish than to altruistic motives. He wanted to get away from 
the deplorable realities about him, the things which hurt his 
tender soul, and so he constructed for himself this idealized 
world of ancient and modern Greece, and peopled it with his 
own creations. 

In Holderlin's "Hyperion," we have the first poetic work in 
German which takes modern Greece as its locality and a 
modern Hellene as its hero. Holderlin calls it "ein Roman," 
but it would be rather inaccurately described by the usual trans- 
lation of that term. It is not only the poetic climax of his 
Hellenism, but also the most complete expression of his Welt- 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 197. 
- Briefe, p. 160. 



28 

schmerz in its various phases. It must naturally be both, for 
the poet and the hero are one. He speaks of it as "mein 
Werkchen, in dem ich lebe und webe." 1 Its subject is the 
emancipation of Greece. What little action is narrated may be 
very briefly indicated. Russia is at war with Turkey and calls 
upon Hellas to liberate itself. The hero and his friend Ala- 
banda are at the head of a band of volunteers, fighting the 
Turks. After several minor successes Hyperion lays siege 
to the Spartan fortress of Misitra. But at its capitulation, he 
is undeceived concerning the Hellenic patriots ; they ravage 
and plunder so fiercely that he turns from them with repug- 
nance and both he and Alabanda abandon the cause of liberty 
which they had championed. To his bride Hyperion had 
promised a redeemed Greece* — a lament is all that he can bring 
her. She dies, Hyperion comes to Germany where his 
aesthetic Greek soul is severely jarred by the sordidness, apathy 
and insensibility of these "barbarians." Returning to the 
Isthmus, he becomes a hermit and writes his letters to Bell- 
armin, no less "thatenarm und gedankenvoll" himself than his 
unfortunate countrymen whom he so characterizes. 2 

"Hyperion," though written in prose, is scarcely anything 
more than a long drawn out lyric poem, so thoroughly is action 
subordinated to reflection, and so beautiful and rhythmic is the 
dignified flow of its periods. But having said that the locality 
is Greece and its hero is supposed to be a modern Greek, that in 
its scenic descriptions Holderlin produces some wonderfully 
natural effects, and that the language shows the imitation of 
Greek turns of expression — Homeric epithets and similes — 
having said this, we have mentioned practically all the Greek 
characteristics of the composition. And there is much in it 
that is entirely un-Hellenic. To begin with, the form in which 
"Hyperion" is cast, that of letters, written not even during the 
progress of the events narrated, but after they are all a thing 
of the past, is not at all a Greek idea. Moreover Weltschmerz, 
which constitutes the "Grundstimmung" of all Holderlin's 
writings, and which is most plainly and persistently expressed 

1 Briefe, p. 162. 

2 Cf. supra, p. 22. 



29 

in "Hyperion," is not Hellenic. Not that we should have to 
look in vain for pessimistic utterances from the classical poets 
of Greece — for does not Sophocles make the deliberate state- 
ment : "Not to be born is the most reasonable, but having seen 
the light, the next best thing is to go to the place whence we 
came as soon as possible." 1 Nevertheless, this sort of senti- 
ment cannot be regarded as representing the spirit of the 
ancient Greeks, which was distinctly optimistic. They were 
happy in their worship of beauty in art and in nature, and above 
all, happy in their creativeness. The question suggests itself 
here, whether a poet can ever be a genuine pessimist, since he 
has within him the everlasting impulse to create. And to 
create is to hope. Hyperion himself says : "Es lebte nichts, 
wenn es nicht hoffte." 2 But we have already distinguished 
between pessimism as a system of philosophy, and Welt- 
schmerz as a poetic mood. 3 It is certainly un-Hellenic that 
Holderlin allows Hyperion with his alleged Greek nature to 
sink into contemplative inactivity. 

In the poem "Der Lorbeer," 1789, he exclaims : 

Soil ewiges Trauern mich umwittern, 
Ewig mich toten die bange Sehnsucht? 4 

which gives expression to the fact that in his Weltschmerz 
there was a very large admixture of "Sehnsucht," an entirely 
un-Hellenic feeling. Nor is there to be found in his entire 
make-up the slightest trace of Greek irony, which would have 
enabled him to overcome much of the bitterness of his life, and 
which might indeed have averted its final catastrophe. 

Undeniably Grecian is Holderlin's idea that the beautiful is 
also the good. Long years he sought for this combined ideal. 
In Diotima, the muse of his "Hyperion," whose prototype was 
Susette Gontard, he has found it — and now he feels that he is in 
a new world. To his friend Neuffer, from whom he has no 
secrets, he writes : "Ich konnte wohl sonst glauben, ich wisse, 
was schon und gut sei, aber seit ich's sehe, mocht' ich lachen 
iiber all mein Wissen. Lieblichkeit und Hoheit, und Ruh und 

1 CEdipus Coloneus," 1225 seq. 
2 Werke, Vol. II, p. 81. 
8 Cf. Introduction, p. 1 f. 
4 Werke, Vol. I, p. 89. 



30 

Leben, und Geist und Gemiit und Gestalt ist Ein seeliges Eins 
in diesem Wesen." 1 And six or eight months later: "Mein 
Schonheitsinn ist nun vor Stoning sicher. Er orientiert sich 
ewig an diesem Madonnenkopfe. . . . Sie ist schon wie Engel ! 
Ein zartes, geistiges, himmlisch reizendes Gesicht! Ach ich 
konnte ein Jahrtausend lang mich und alles vergessen bei ihr — 
Majestat und Zartlichkeit, und Frohlichkeit und Ernst — und 
Leben und Geist, alles ist in und an ihr zu einem gottlichen 
Ganzen vereint." 2 It would be difficult to conceive of a more 
complete and sublime eulogy of any object of affection than 
the words just quoted, and yet they do not conceal their 
author's etherial quality of thought, his "Uebersinnlichkeit." 
Even his boyish love-affairs seem to have been largely of this 
character, and were in all likelihood due to the necessity which 
he felt of bestowing his affection somewhere, rather than to 
irresistible forces proceeding from the objects of his regard. 

Lack of self-restraint, so often characteristic of the poet of 
Weltschmerz, was not Holderlin's greatest fault. And yet if 
his intense devotion to Susette remained undebased by sensual 
desires, as we know it did, this was not solely due to the prac- 
tice of heroic self-restraint, but must be attributed in part to 
the fact that that side of his nature was entirely subordinate to 
his higher ideals; and these were always a stronger passion 
with Holderlin than his love. So that Diotima's judgment of 
Hyperion is correct when she says : "O es ist so ganz natiir- 
lich, dass Du nimmer lieben willst, weil Deine grossern 
Wiinsche verschmachten." 3 This consideration at once com- 
pels a comparison with Lenau, which must be deferred, how- 
ever, until the succeeding chapter. Undoubtedly this year and 
a half at Frankfurt was the happiest period of his whole life. 
It brought him a serenity of mind which he had never before 
known. Ardent was the response called forth by his devotion, 
but its influence was wholesome — it was soothing to his sensi- 
tive nerves. And because it was altogether more a sublime 
than an earthly passion, he indulged himself in it with a con- 

1 Briefe, p. 382 f. 

2 Briefe, p. 403-405. 

3 Werke, Vol. II, p. 175. 



31 

science void of offence. Doubtless he correctly describes the 
influence of his relations with Diotima upon his life when he 
writes : "Ich sage Dir, lieber Neuffer ! ich bin auf dem Wege, 
ein recht guter Knabe zu werden. . . . mein Herz ist voll Lust, 
und wenn das heilige Schicksal mir mein gliicklich Leben erhalt, 
so hoff' ich kiinftig mehr zu thun als bisher.'' 1 But the happy 
life was not to continue long. Rudely the cup was dashed 
from his lips, and the poet's pain intensified by one more disap- 
pointment — the bitterest of all he had experienced. It filled 
him with thoughts of revenge, which he was powerless to exe- 
cute. There can be no question that if his love for Susette had 
been of a less etherial order, less a thing of the soul, he would 
have felt much less bitterly her husband's violent interference. 
But returning to the poem "Hyperion," for as such we may 
regard it, we find in it the most complete expression of the 
attitude which the poet, in his Weltschmerz, assumed toward 
nature. Nature is his constant companion, mother, comforter 
in sorrow, in his brighter moments his deity. This nature- 
worship, which speedily develops into a more or less consistent 
pantheism, Holderlin expresses in Hyperion's second letter, 
in the following creed : "Eines zu sein mit allem, was lebt, in 
seliger Selbstvergessenheit wiederzukehren ins All der Natur, 
das ist der Gipfel der Gedanken und Freuden, das ist die heilige 
Bergeshohe, der Ort der ewigen Ruhe." 2 And so nature is to 
Holderlin always intensely real and personal. The sea is 
youthful, full of exuberant joy; the mountain-tops are hopeful 
and serene; with shouts of joy the stream hurls itself like a 
giant down into the forests. Here and there his personification 
of nature becomes even more striking: "O das Morgenlicht 
und ich, wir gingen uns entgegen, wie versohnte Freunde." 8 
Still more intense is this feeling of personal intimacy, when he 
exclaims : "O selige Natur ! ich weiss nicht, wie mir geschiehet, 
wenn ich mein Auge erhebe von deiner Schone, aber alle Lust 
des Himmels ist in den Thranen, die ich weine vor dir, der 
Geliebte vor der Geliebten." 4 It is important for purposes of 

1 Briefe, p. 404. 

2 Werke, Vol. II, p. 68. 

3 Werke, Vol. II, p. 100. 

*Werke, Vol. II, p. 68. 



32 

comparison, to note that notwithstanding his intense Welt- 
schmerz, in his treatment of nature Holderlin does not select 
only its gloomy or terrible aspects. Light and shade alternate 
in his descriptions, and only here and there is the background 
entirely unrelieved. The thunderstorm is to him a dispenser of 
divine energies among forest and field, even the seasons of 
decline and decay are not left without sunshine: "auf der 
stummen entblatterten Landschaft, wo der Himmel schoner 
als je, mit Wolken und Sonnenschein urn die herbstlich schla- 
fenden Baume spielte." 1 One passage in "Hyperion" bears so 
striking a resemblance, however, to Lenau's characteristic 
nature-pictures, that it shall be given in full — although even 
here, when the gloom of his sorrow and disappointment was 
steadily deepening, he does- not fail to derive comfort from the 
warm sunshine, a thought for which we should probably look 
in vain, had Lenau painted the picture : "Ich sass mit Ala- 
banda auf einem Hiigel der Gegend, in lieblich warmender 
Sonn', und um uns spielte der Wind mit abgefallenem Laube. 
Das Land war stumm ; nur hie und da ertonte im Wald ein 
stiirzender Baum, vom Landmann gefallt, und neben uns mur- 
melte der vergangliche Regenbach hinab ins ruhige Meer." 2 

In spite of his deep and persistent Weltschmerz, Holderlin 
rarely gives expression to a longing for death. This forms so 
prominent a feature in the thought of other types of Welt- 
schmerz, for instance of Lenau and of Leopardi, that its ab- 
sence here cannot fail to be noticed. It is true that in his 
dramatic poem "Der Tod des Empedokles," which symbolizes 
the closing of his account with the world, Holderlin causes his 
hero to return voluntarily to nature by plunging into the fiery 
crater of Mount Etna. But Empedokles does this to atone 
for past sin, not merely to rid himself of the pain of living ; and 
thus, even as a poetic idea, it impresses us very differently from 
the continual yearning for death which pervades the writings 
of the two poets just mentioned. Leopardi declared that it 
were best never to see the light, but denounced suicide as a 
cowardly act of selfishness ; and yet at the approach of an epi- 

1 Werke, Vol. II, p. 85. 

2 Werke, Vol. II, p. 181. 



33 

demic of cholera, he clung so tenaciously to life that he urged a 
hurried departure from Naples, regardless of the hardships of 
such a journey in his feeble condition, and took refuge in a 
little villa near Vesuvius. Holderlin's Weltschmerz was abso- 
lutely sincere. 

Numerous passages might be quoted to show that Holder- 
lin's mind was intensely introspective. This is true also of 
Lenau, even to a greater extent, and may be taken as generally 
characteristic of poets of this type. The fact that this intro- 
spection is an inevitable symptom in many mental derange- 
ments, hypochondria, melancholia and others, indicates a not 
very remote relation of Weltschmerz to insanity. In Holder- 
lin's poems there are not a few premonitions of the sad fate 
which awaited him. One illustration from the poem "An die 
HofTnung," 1801, may suffice: 

Wo bist du? wenig lebt' ich, doch atmet kalt 
Mein Abend schon. Und stille, den Schatten gleich, 
Bin ich schon hier; und schon gesanglos 
Schlummert das schau'rende Herz im Busen. 1 

It is impossible to read these lines without feeling something of 
the cold chill of the heart that Holderlin felt was already upon 
him, and which he expresses in a manner so intensely realistic 
and yet so beautiful. 

Having thus attempted a review of the growth of Holder- 
lin's Weltschmerz and of its chief characteristics, it merely 
remains to conclude the chapter with a brief resume. We 
have then in Friedrich Holderlin a youth peculiarly predis- 
posed to feel himself isolated from and repelled by the world, 
growing up without a strong fatherly hand to guide, giving 
himself over more and more to solitude and so becoming 
continually less able to cope with untoward circumstances and 
conditions. Growing into manhood, he was unfortunate in all 
his love-affairs and as though doomed to unceasing disappoint- 
ments. Early in life he devoted himself to the study of an- 
tiquity, making Greece his hobby, and thus creating for himself 
an ideal world which existed only in his imagination, and taking 
refuge in it from the buffetings of the world about him. He was ' 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 253. 
3 



34 

a man of a deeply philosophical trend of mind, and while not 
often speaking of it, felt very keenly the humiliating condition 
of Germany, although his patriotic enthusiasm found its artistic 
expression not with reference to Germany but to Greece. As a 
poet, finally, his intimacy with nature was such that nature-wor- 
ship and pantheism became his religion. 

In reviewing the whole range of Holderlin's writings, we 
cannot avoid the conclusion, that in him we have a type of 
Weltschmerz in the broadest sense of the term; we might 
almost term it Byronism, with the sensual element eliminated. 
He shows the hypersensitiveness of Werther, fanatical enthusi- 
asm for a vague ideal of liberty, vehement opposition to exist- 
ing social and political conditions ; there is, in fact, a breadth in 
his Weltschmerz, which makes the sorrows of Werther seem 
very highly specialized in comparison. Bearing in mind the 
distinction made between the two classes, we must designate 
Holderlin's Weltschmerz as cosmic rather than egoistic; the 
egoistic element is there, but it is outweighed by the cosmic and 
finds its poetic expression not so frequently nor so intensely 
with reference to the poet himself, as with reference to mankind 
at large. 



CHAPTER III 

Lenau 

If Holderlin's Weltschmerz has been fittingly characterized 
as idealistic, Lenau's on the other hand may appropriately be 
termed the naturalistic type. He is par excellence the "Pathet- 
iker" of Weltschmerz. 

Without presuming even to attempt a final solution of a 
problem of pathology concerning which specialists have failed 
to agree, there seems to be sufficient circumstantial as well as 
direct evidence to warrant the assumption that Lenau's case 
presents an instance of hereditary taint. Notwithstanding the 
fact that Dr. Karl Weiler 1 discredits the idea of "erbliche Be- 
lastung" and calls heredity "den vielgerittenen Verlegenheits- 
gaul," the conclusion forces itself upon us that if the theory 
has any scientific value whatsoever, no more plausible instance 
of it could be found than the one under consideration. The 
poet's great-grandfather and grandfather had been officers in 
the Austrian army, the latter with some considerable distinc- 
tion. Of his five children, only Franz, the poet's father, sur- 
vived. The complete lack of anything like a systematic 
education, and the nomadic life of the army did not fail to 
produce the most disastrous results in the wild and dissolute 
character of the young man. Even before the birth of the poet, 
his father had broken his marriage vows and his wife's heart by 
his abominable dissipations and drunkenness. Lenau was but 
five years old when his father, not yet thirty-five, died of a dis- 
ease which he is believed to have contracted as a result of these 
sensual and senseless excesses. To the poet he bequeathed 
something of his own pathological sensuality, instability of 
thought and action, lack of will-energy, and the tears of a heart- 

1 Euphorion, 1899, p. 791. 

35 



36 

broken mother, a sufficient guarantee, surely, of a poet of mel- 
ancholy. Even though we cannot avoid the reflection that the 
loss of such a father was a blessing in disguise, the fact remains 
that Lenau during his childhood and youth needed paternal 
guidance and training even more than did Holderlin. He be- 
came the idol of his mother, who in her blind devotion did not 
hesitate to show him the utmost partiality in all things. This 
important fact alone must account to a large extent for that pre- 
sumptuous pride, which led him to expect perhaps more than 
his just share from life and from the world. 

Lenau's aimlessness and instability were so extreme that they 
may properly be counted a pathological trait. It is best illus- 
trated by his university career. In 1819 he went to Vienna 
to commence his studies. "Beginning with Philosophy, he soon 
transferred his interests to Law, first Hungarian, then Ger- 
man; finding the study of Law entirely unsuited to his tastes, 
he now declared his intention of pursuing once more a phil- 
osophical course, with a view to an eventual professorship. 
But this plan was frustrated by his grandmother, the upshot of 
it all being that Lenau allowed himself to be persuaded to take 
up the study of agriculture at Altenburg. But a few months 
sufficed to bring him back to Vienna. Here his legal studies, 
which he had resumed and almost completed, were interrupted 
by a severe affection of the throat which developed into 
laryngitis and from which he never quite recovered. This too, 
according to Dr. Sadger, 1 marks the neurasthenic, and often 
constitutes a hereditary taint. Lenau thereupon shifted once 
more and entered upon a medical course, this time not abso- 
lutely without predilection. He did himself no small credit in 
his medical examinations, but the death of his grandmother, 
just before his intended graduation, provided a sufficient ex- 
cuse for him to discontinue the work, which was never again 
resumed or brought to a conclusion. But not only in matters 
of such relative importance did Lenau exhibit this vacillation. 
There was a spirit of restlessness in him which made it impos- 
sible for him to remain long in the same place. Of this condi- 
tion no one was more fully aware than he himself. In one of 

1 "Nicolaus Lenau," Neue Fr. Fr., Nr. u 166-7 



37 

his letters he writes: "Gestern hat jemand berechnet, wieviel 
Poststunden ich in zwei Monaten gefahren bin, und es ergab 
sich die kolossale Summe von 644, die ich im Eilwagen unter 
bestandiger Gemutsbewegung gefahren bin." 1 That this habit 
of almost incessant travel tended to aggravate his nervous 
condition is a fair supposition, notwithstanding the fact that 
Dr. Karl Weiler 2 skeptically asks "what about commercial 
travellers?" Lenau himself complains frequently of the dis- 
tressing effect of such journeys: "Ein heftiger Kopfschmerz 
und grosse Miidigkeit waren die Folgen der von Linz an un- 
ausgesetzten Reise im Eilwagen bei schlechtem Wetter und 
abmiidenden Gedanken an meine Zukunft." 3 Many similar 
statements might be quoted from his letters to show that it was 
not merely the ordinary process of traveling, though that at 
best must have been trying enough, but the breathless haste of 
his journeys, combined with mental anxiety, which usually 
characterized them, that made them so detrimental to his 
health. 

It is as interesting as it is significant to note in this connec- 
tion the fact that while on a journey to Munich, just a short 
time before the light of his intellect failed, Lenau wrote the 
following lines, the last but one of all his poems : 

's ist eitel nichts, wohin mein Aug' ich hefte! 
Das Leben ist ein vielbesagtes Wandern, 
Ein wiistes Jagen ist's von dem zum andern, 
Und unterwegs verlieren wir die Krafte. 

Doch tragt uns eine Macht von Stund zu Stund, 
Wie's Kriiglein, das am Brunnenstein zersprang, 
Und dessen Inhalt sickert auf den Grund, 
So weit es ging, den ganzen Weg entlang, — 
Nun ist es leer. Wer mag daraus noch trinken? 
Und zu den andern Scherben muss es sinken.* 

Holderlin also uses the striking figure contained in the last 
line, not however as here to picture the worthlessness of human 

1 Schurz, Vol. II, p. 212. 

2 Cf. Euphorion, 1899, p. 795. 

3 Anton Schurz: "Lenau's Leben," Cotta, 1855 (hereafter quoted as "Schurz"), 
Vol. II, p. 199. 

4 "Lenaus Werke," ed Max Koch, in Kurschner's DNL. (hereafter quoted as 
"Werke"), Vol. I, p. 52sf. 



38 

life in general, but to stigmatize the Germans, whom Hyperion 
describes as "dumpf und harmonielos, wie die Scherben eines 
weggeworfenen Gefasses." 1 

That Lenau was a neurasthenic seems to be the consensus of 
opinion, at least of those medical authorities who have given 
their views of the case to the public. 2 This fact also has an 
important bearing upon our discussion, since it will help to 
show a materially different origin for Lenau's Weltschmerz 
and Holderlin's. 

Much more frequent than in the case of the latter are the 
ominous forebodings of impending disaster which characterize 
Lenau's poems and correspondence. In a letter to his friend 
Karl Mayer he writes : "Mich regiert eine Art Gravitation 
nach dem Unglucke. Schwab hat einmal von einem Wahnsinn- 
igen sehr geistreich gesprochen. . . . Ein Analogon von sol- 
chem Damon (des Wahnsinns) glaub' ich auch in mir zu be- 
herbergen." 3 He is continually engaged in a gruesome self- 
diagnosis : "Dann ist mir zuweilen, als hielte der Teufel seine 
Jagd in dem Nervenwalde meines Unterleibes : ich hore ein 
deutliches Hundegebell daselbst und ein dumpfes Halloh des 
Schwarzen. Ohne Scherz ; es ist oft zum Verzweifeln." 4 
This process of self-diagnosis may be due in part to his med- 
ical studies, but much more, we think, to his morbid imagina- 
tion, which led him, on more than one occasion, to play the 
madman in so realistic a manner that strangers were fright- 
ened out of their wits and even his friends became alarmed, 
lest it might be earnest and not jest which they were witnessing. 

Lenau was not without a certain sense of humor, grim 
humor though it was, and here and there in his letters there is 
an admixture of levity with the all-pervading melancholy. An 
example may be quoted from a letter to Kerner in Weinsberg, 
dated 1832 : "Heute bin ich wieder bei Reinbecks auf ein 
grosses Spargelessen. Spargel wie Kirchthiirme werden da 
gefressen. Ich allein verschlinge 50-60 solcher Kirchthiirme 

1 Cf. supra, p. 22. 

2 Cf. among others Sadger, Weiler. Infra, p. 88. 

3 "Nicolaus Lenau's Briefe an einen Freund," Stuttgart, 1853, p. 68 f. 

4 "Nicolaus Lenau's sammtliche Werke," herausgegeben von G. Emil Barthel, 
Leipzig, Reclam, p. CI. 



39 

tind komme mir dabei vor, wie eine Parodie unserer politisch- 
prosaischen, durchaus unheiligen Zeit, die audi schon das 
Maul aufsperrt, um alles Heilige, und namentlich die guten 
glaubigen Kirchthiirme wie Spargelstangen zu verschlingen." 
The letter concludes with the signature: "Ich umarme Dich, 
bis Dir die Rippen krachen. Dein Niembsch." 1 Not infre- 
quently this humor was at his own expense, especially when 
describing an unpleasant condition or situation, as for example 
in a letter to Sophie Lowenthal in the year 1844 : "J etzt ^e 
ich hier in Saus und Braus, — d. h. es saust und braust mir der 
Kopf von einem leidigen Schnupfen." 2 Again, on finding him- 
self on one occasion very unwell and uncomfortable in Stutt- 
gart, he writes as follows: "Bestandiges Unwohlsein, Kopf- 
schmerz, Schlaflosigkeit, Mattigkeit, schlechte Verdauung, 
Rhabarber, Druckfehler, und Aerger tiber den tragen Fort- 
schlich meiner Geschafte, das waren die Freuden meiner 
letzten Woche. Emilie will es nicht gelten lassen, dass die 
Stuttgarter Luft nichts als die Ausdiinstung des Teufels sei. — 
Ich schnappe nach Luft, wie ein Spatz unter der Luftpumpe. — 
In vielen der hiesigen Strassen riecht es am Ende auch 
lenzhaft, namlich pestilenzhaft, und die guten Stuttgarter 
merken das gar nicht; 'suss duftet die Heimat.' " 3 In his 
fondness for bringing together the incongruous, for introduc- 
ing the element of surprise, and in the fact that his humor is 
almost always of the impatient, disgruntled, cynical type, 
Lenau reminds us not a little of Heine in his "Reisebilder" and 
some other prose works. Holderlin, on the other hand, may 
be said to have been utterly devoid of humor. 

Lack of self-control, perhaps the most characteristic trait 
among men of genius, was even more pronounced in Lenau 
than in Holderlin. This shows itself in the extreme irregu- 
larity of his habits of life. For instance, it was his custom 
to work long past the midnight hour, and then take his rest 
until nearly noon. He could never get his coffee quite strong 
enough to suit him, although it was prepared almost in the 

1 Schurz, Vol. I, p. 169. 

2 Schurz, Vol. II, p. 144. 

3 Schurz, Vol. II, p. iS2f. 



40 

form of a concentrated tincture and he drank large quantities 
of it. He smoked to excess, and the strongest cigars at that ; in 
short, he seems to have been entirely without regard for his 
physical condition. Or was it perverseness which prompted 
him to prefer close confinement in his room to the long walks 
which he ought to have taken for his health? Even his recre- 
ation, which consisted chiefly in playing the violin, brought 
him no nervous relaxation, for it is said that he would often 
play himself into a state of extreme nervous excitement. 

All these considerations corroborate the opinion of those 
who knew him best, that his Weltschmerz, and eventually his 
insanity, had its origin in a pathological condition. Indeed 
this was the poet's own view of the case. In a letter to his 
brother-in-law, Anton Schurz, dated 1834, he says: "Aber, 
lieber Bruder, die Hypochondrie schlagt bei mir immer tiefere 
Wurzel. Es hilft alles nichts. Der gewisse innere Riss wird 
immer tiefer und weiter. Es hilft alles nichts. Ich weiss, es 
liegt im Korper; aber — aber — " x In its origin then, Lenau's 
Weltschmerz differs altogether from that of Holderlin, who 
exhibits no such symptoms of neurasthenia. 

Lenau's nervous condition was seriously aggravated at an 
early date by the outcome of his unfortunate relations with the 
object of his first love, Bertha, who became his mistress when 
he was still a mere boy. His grief on finding her faithless was 
doubtless as genuine as his conduct with her had been repre- 
hensible, for he cherished for many long years the memory of 
his painful disappointment. The general statement, "Lenau 
war stets verlobt, fand aber stets in sich selbst einen Wider- 
stand und unerklarliche Angst, wenn die Verbindung endgiltig 
gemacht werden sollte," 2 is inaccurate and misleading, inas- 
much as it fails to take into proper account the causes, mediate 
and immediate, of his hesitation to marry. Lenau was only 
once "verlobt," and it was the stroke of facial paralysis 3 which 
announced the beginning of the end, rather than any "un- 

1 Schurz, Vol. I, p. 275. 

2 Ricarda Huch: "Romantische Lebenslaufe." Neue d. Rundschau, Feb. 1902, 
p. 126. 

s Sept. 29, 1844. Cf. Schurz, Vol. II, p. 223. 



41 

erklarliche Angst," that convinced him of the inexpediency of 
that important step. 

Beyond a doubt his long drawn out and abject devotion to 
the wife of his friend Max Lowenthal proved the most impor- 
tant single factor in his life. It was during the year 1834, 
after his return from America, that Lenau made the acquaint- 
ance of the Lowenthal family in Vienna. 1 Sophie, who was 
the sister of his old comrade Fritz Kleyle, so attracted the 
poet that he remained in the city for a number of weeks instead 
of going at once to Stuttgart, as he had planned and promised. 
What at first seemed an ideal friendship, increased in inten- 
sity until it became, at least on Lenau's part, the very glow of 
passion. We have already alluded to the poet's premature 
erotic instinct, an impulse which he doubtless inherited from 
his sensual parents. In his numerous letters and notes to 
Sophie, he has left us a remarkable record of the intensity of 
his passion. Not even excepting Goethe's letters to Frau von 
Stein, there are no love-letters in the German language to 
equal these in literary or artistic merit; and never has any 
other German poet addressed himself with more ardent devo- 
tion to a woman. A characteristic difference between Holder- 
lin and Lenau here becomes evident: the former, even in his 
relations with Diotima, supersensual ; the latter the very incar- 
nation of sensuality. Lenau was fully conscious of the tre- 
mendous struggle with overpowering passion, and once con- 
fessed to his clerical friend Martensen that only through the 
unassailable chastity of his lady-love had his conscience re- 
mained void of offence. Almost any of his innumerable 
protestations of love taken at random would seem like the 
most extravagant attempt to give utterance to the inexpres- 
sible : "Gottes starke Hand driickt mich so fest an Dich, dass 
ich seufzen muss und ringen mit erdruckender Wonne, und 
meine Seele keinen Atem mehr hat, wenn sie nicht Deine Liebe 
saugen kann. Ach Sophie ! ach, liebe, liebe, liebe Sophie !" 2 
"Ich bete Dich an, Du bist mein Liebstes und Hochstes." 3 

*L. A. Frankl: "Lenau und Sophie Lowenthal," Stuttgart, 1891 (hereafter quoted 
as "Frankl") p. 189, incorrectly states the date as 1838. Possibly it is a misprint.' 
2 Frankl, p. 155. 
8 Frankl, p. 151. 



42 

"Am sechsten Juni reis' ich ab, nichts darf mich halten. Mir 
brennt Leib und Seele nach Dir. Du ! O Sophie ! Hatt' ich 
Dich da ! Das Verlangen schmerzt, O Gott I" 1 Instead of ex- 
periencing the soothing influences of a Diotima, Lenau's fate 
was to be engaged for ten long years in a hot conflict between 
principle and passion, a conflict which kept his naturally over- 
sensitive nerves continually on the rack. He himself expresses 
the detrimental effect of this situation: "So treibt mich die 
Liebe von einer Raserei zur andern, von der ziigellosesten 
Freude zu verzweifeltem Unmut. Warum? Weil ich am Ziel 
der hochsten, so heiss ersehnten Wonne immer wieder umkehren 
muss, weil die Sehnsucht nie gestillt wird, wird sie irr und wild 
und verkehrt sich in Verzweiflung, — das ist die Geschichte 
meines Herzens." 2 It would seem from the tone of many of 
his letters that there was much deliberate and successful effort 
on the part of Sophie to keep Lenau's feelings toward her al- 
ways in a state of the highest nervous tension. So cleverly did 
she manage this that even her caprices put him only the more 
hopelessly at her mercy. One day he writes : "Mit grosser 
Ungeduld erwartete ich gestern die Post, und sie brachte mir 
auch einen Brief von Dir, aber einen, der mich krankt." 3 For 
a day or two he is rebellious and writes : "Ich bin verstimmt, 
missmutig. Warum storst Du mein Herz in seinen schonen 
Gedanken von innigem Zusammenleben auch in der Feme?" 4 
But only a few days later he is again at her feet: "Ich habe 
Dir heute wieder geschrieben, um Dich auch zum Schreiben zu 
treiben. Ich sehne mich nach Deinen Briefen. Du bist nicht 
sehr eifrig, Du bist es wohl nie gewesen. Und kommt endlich 
einmal ein Brief, so hat er meist seinen Haken — O liebe 
Sophie ! wie lieb' ich Dich !" 5 Her attitude on several oc- 
casions leaves room for no other inference than that she was 
extremely jealous of his affections. When in 1839 a mutual 
regard sprang up between Lenau and the singer Karoline 
Unger, a regard which held out to him the hope of a fuller and 

1 Frankl, p. 164. 

2 Frankl, p. 102. 
8 Frankl, p. 149. 
4 Frankl, p. 150. 
B Frankl, p. 150. 



43 

happier existence, we may surmise the nature of Sophie's inter- 
ference from the following reply to her: "Sie haben mir mit 
Ihren paar Zeilen das Herz zerschmettert, — Karoline liebt 
mich und will mein werden. Sie sieht's als ihre Sendung an, 
mein Leben zu versohnen und zu begliicken. — Es ist an Ihnen 
Menschlichkeit zu uben an meinem zerrissenen Herzen. — Ver- 
stosse ich sie, so mache ich sie elend und mich zugleich. — 
Entziehen Sie mir Ihr Herz, so geben Sie mir den Tod; sind 
Sie ungliicklich, so will ich sterben. Der Knoten ist geschiirzt. 
Ich wollte, ich ware schon tot I" 1 Not only was this proposed 
match broken off, but when some five years later Lenau made 
the acquaintance of and became engaged to a charming young 
girl, Marie Behrends, and all the poet's friends rejoiced with 
him at the prospect of a happy marriage, a "Musterehe," as 
he fondly called it, Sophie wrote him the cruel words: 
"Eines von uns muss wahnsinnig werden." 2 Only a few 
months were needed to decide which of them it should be. 

The foregoing illustrations are ample to show what sort of 
influence Sophie exerted over the poet's entire nature, and 
therefore upon his Weltschmerz. Whereas in their hopeless 
loves, Holderlin and to an even greater extent Goethe, strug- 
gled through to the point of renunciation, Lenau constantly 
retrogrades, and allows his baser sensual instincts more and 
more to control him. He promises to subdue his wild out- 
bursts a little, 3 and when he fails he tries to explain, 4 to apol- 
ogize. 5 If with Holderlin love was to a predominating degree 
a thing of the soul, it was with Lenau in an equal measure a 
matter of nerves, and as such, under these conditions, it could 
not but contribute largely to his physical, mental and moral 
disruption. With Holderlin it was the rude interruption from 
without of his quiet and happy intercourse with Susette, which 
embittered his soul. With Lenau it was the feverish, tumultu- 
ous nature of the love itself, that deepened his melancholy. 

1 Schurz, Vol. II, p. 7. 

2 Cf. Lenau's Sammtl. Werke, herausg. von G. Emil Bartel, Leipzig, ohne Jahr. 
Introd., p. clxv. 

3 Frankl, p. 32. 

4 Frankl, p. 14. 

5 Frankl, p. 30. 



44 

The charge of affectation in their Weltschmerz would be an 
entirely baseless one, both in the case of Holderlin and Lenau. 
But this difference is readily discovered in the impressions 
made upon us by their writings, namely that Holderlin's Welt- 
schmerz is absolutely naive and unconscious, while that of 
Lenau is at all times self-conscious and self-centered. Men- 
tion has already been made, in speaking of Lenau's pathological 
traits, 1 of his confirmed habit of self-diagnosis. This he ap- 
plied not only to his physical condition but to his mental expe- 
riences as well. No one knew so well as he how deeply the 
roots of melancholy had penetrated his being. 'Teh bin ein 
Melancholiker" he once wrote to Sophie, "der Kompass meiner 
Seele zittert immer wieder zuriick nach dem Schmerze des 
Lebens." 2 Innumerable illustrations of this fact might be 
found in his lyrics, all of which would repeat with variations 
the theme of the stanza : 

Du geleitest mich durch's Leben 

Sinnende Melancholie! 

Mag mein Stern sich strebend heben, 

Mag er sinken, — weichest nie ! 3 

The definite purpose with which the poet seeks out and strives 
to keep intact his painful impressions is frankly stated in one 
of his diary memoranda, as follows : "So gibt es eine Hohe 
des Kummers, auf welcher angelangt wir einer einzelnen 
Empfindung nicht nachspringen, sondern sie laufen lassen, 
weil wir den Blick fur das schmerzliche Ganze nicht verlieren, 
sondern eine gewisse kummervolle Sammlung behalten wollen, 
die bei aller scheinbaren Aussenheiterkeit recht gut fort- 
bestehen kann." 4 Holderlin, as we have noted, 5 not infre- 
quently pictures himself as a sacrifice to the cause of liberty 
and fatherland, to the new era that is to come: 

Umsonst zu sterben, lieb' ich nicht; doch 

Lieb' ich zu fallen am Opferhugel 

Fur's Vaterland, zu bluten des Herzens Blut, 

Fur's Vaterland . . . . 6 

1 Cf. supra, p. 38. 

2 Frankl, p. 15. 

3 Werke, I, p. 89. 

4 Frankl, p. 114. 

Cf. supra, p. 18. 

6 Holderlins Werke, Vol. 1, p. 195. 



45 

Lenau, on the other hand, is anxious to sacrifice himself to his 
muse. "Kiinstlerische Ausbildung ist mein hochster Lebens- 
zweck; alle Krafte meines Geistes, meines Gemiites betracht' 
ich als Mittel dazu. Erinnerst Du Dich des Gedichtes von 
Chamisso, 1 wo der Maler einen Jiingling ans Kreuz nagelt, um 
ein Bild vom Todesschmerze zu haben? Ich will mich selber 
ans Kreuz schlagen, wenn's nur ein gutes Gedicht gibt." 2 And 
again : "Vielleicht ist die Eigenschaft meiner Poesie, dass sie 
ein Selbstopfer ist, das Beste daran." 3 The specific instances 
just cited, together with the inevitable impressions gathered 
from the reading of his lyrics, make it impossible to avoid 
the conclusion that we are dealing here with a virtuoso of 
Weltschmerz; that Lenau was not only conscious at all times 
of the depth of his sorrow, but that he was also fully aware 
of its picturesqueness and its poetic possibilities. It is true 
that this self-consciousness brings him dangerously near the 
bounds of insincerity, but it must also be granted that he never 
oversteps those bounds. 

Regarded as a psychological process, Lenau's Weltschmerz 
therefore stands midway between that of Holderlin and Heine. 
It is more self-centred than Holderlin's and while the poet is 
able to diagnose the disease which holds him firmly in its grasp, 
he lacks those means by which he might free himself from it. 
Heine goes still further, for having become conscious of his 
melancholy, he mercilessly applies the lash of self-irony, and 
in it finds the antidote for his Weltschmerz. 

Fichte, says Erich Schmidt, calls egoism the spirit of the 
eighteenth century, by which he means the revelling, the com- 
plete absorption, in the personal. This will naturally find its 
favorite occupation in sentimental self-contemplation, which 
becomes a sort of fashionable epidemic. It is this fashion 
which Goethe wished to depict in "Werther," and therefore 
Werther's hopeless love is not wholly responsible for his sui- 
cide. "Werther untergrabt sein Dasein durch Selbstbetrach- 
tung," is Goethe's own explanation of the case. 4 And it is in 

1 "Das Kruzifix, Eine Kunstlerlegende," 1820. 
* Schurz, Vol. I, p. is8f. 

3 Schurz, Vol. II, p. 6. 

4 Cf. Breitinger: "Studien und Wandertage;" Frauenfeld, Huber, 1870. 



46 

this light only that Werther's malady deserves in any compre- 
hensive sense the term Weltschmerz. Here, then, Lenau and 
Werther stand on common ground. Other traits common to 
most poets of Weltschmerz might here be enumerated as charac- 
teristic of both, such as extreme fickleness of purpose, supersen- 
sitiveness, lack of definite vocation, and the like; all of which 
goes to show that while for artistic purposes Goethe required a 
dramatic cause, or rather occasion, for Werther's suicide, he 
nevertheless fully understood all the symptoms of the prevail- 
ing disease with which his sentimental hero was afflicted. 

While the personal elements in Lenau's Weltschmerz are 
much more intense in their expression than with Holderlin, its 
altruistic side is proportionately weaker. So far as we may 
judge from his lyrics, very little of Lenau's Weltschmerz was 
inspired by patriotic considerations. There is opposition, it is 
true, to the existing order, but that opposition is directed 
almost solely against that which annoyed and inconvenienced 
him personally, for example, against the stupid as well as rigor- 
ous Austrian censorship. Against this bugbear he never ceases 
to storm in verse and letters, and to it must be attributed in a 
large measure his literary alienation from the land of his adop- 
tion. That we must look to his lyrics rather than to his longer 
epic writings, in order to discover the poet's deepest interests, is 
nowhere more clearly evidenced than in the following refer- 
ence to his "Savonarola," in a letter to Emilie Reinbeck during 
the progress of the work: "Savonarola wirkte zumeist als 
Prediger, darum muss ich in meinem Gedicht ihn vielfach 
predigen und dogmatisieren lassen, welches in vierfiissigen 
doppeltgereimten Iamben sehr schwierig ist. Doch es freut 
mich, Dinge poetisch durchzusetzen, an deren poetischer 
Darstellbarkeit wohl die meisten Menschen verzweifeln. Auch 
gereicht es mir zu besonderem Vergniigen, mit diesem Gedicht 
gegen den herrschenden Geschmack unseres Tages in Oppo- 
sition zu treten." 1 The inference lies very near at hand that 
his opposition to the prevailing taste was after all a secondary 
consideration, and that the poet's first concern was to win glory 

1 Schlossar: "Nicolaus Lenaus Brief e an Emilie von Reinbeck," Stuttgart, 1896 
(hereafter quoted as "Schlossar"), p. 98. 



47 

by accomplishing something which others would abandon as an 
impossibility. While recognizing the fact that Lenau's 
"Faust" and "Don Juan" are largely autobiographical, it is, I 
think, obvious that an entirely adequate impression of his Welt- 
schmerz may be gained from his letters and lyrics alone, in 
which the poet's sincerest feelings need not be subordinated for 
a moment to artistic purposes or demands. And nowhere, 
either in lyrics or letters, do we find such spontaneous out- 
bursts of patriotic sentiment as greet us in Holderlin's poems: 

Gliickselig Suevien, meine Mutter I 1 
This could not be otherwise; for was he (Lenau) not an Hun- 
garian by birth, an Austrian by adoption, and in his profes- 
sional affiliations a German? Had his interests not been 
divided between Vienna and Stuttgart, and had he not been 
possessed with an apparently uncontrollable restlessness which 
drove him from place to place, his patriotic enthusiasm would 
naturally have turned to Austria, and the poetic expression of 
his home sentiments would not have been confined, perhaps, to 
the one occasion when he had put the broad Atlantic between 
himself and his kin. That his brother-in-law Schurz should 
wish to represent him as a dyed-in-the-wool Austrian is only 
natural. 2 However this may be, the poet does not hesitate to 
state in a letter to Emilie Reinbeck : "Ein Hund in Schwaben 
hat mehr Achtung fur mich als ein Polizeiprasident in Oester- 
reich." 3 And although he professes to have become hardened 
to the pestering interference of the authorities, as a matter of 
fact it was a constant source of unhappiness to him. "So aber 
war mein Leben seit meinem letzten Briefe ein bestandiger 
Aerger. Die verfluchten Vexationen der hiesigen Censurbe- 
horde haben selbst jetzt noch immer kein Ende finden konnen." 4 
Speaking of his hatred for the censorship law, he says : "Und 
doch gebiihrt mein Hass noch immer viel weniger dem Gesetze 
selbst, als denjenigen legalisierten Bestien, die das Gesetz auf 
eine so niedertrachtige Art handhaben; — und unsre Censoren 
•stellen im Gegensatze der pflanzen- und fleischfressenden Tiere 

1 Werke, Vol. II, p. 260. 

2 Schurz, Vol. II, p. 193. 

3 Schlossar, p. 109. 
* Schlossar, p. 111. 



48 

die Klasse der geistfressenden Tiere dar, eine abscheuliche, 
monstrose Klasse I" 1 Roustan expresses the opinion that with 
Lenau patriotism occupied a secondary place. 2 He had too 
many "native lands" to become attached to any one of them. 

There is something of a counterpart to Holderlin's Hellen- 
ism and championship of Greek liberty in Lenau's espousal of 
the Polish cause. But here again the personal element is 
strongly in evidence. A chance acquaintance, which afterward 
became an intimate friendship, with Polish fugitives, seems to 
have been the immediate occasion of his Polenlieder, so that 
his enthusiasm for Polish liberty must be regarded as inci- 
dental rather than spontaneous. Needless to say that with a 
Greek cult such as Holderlin's Lenau had no patience what- 
ever. "Dass die Poesie -den profanen Schmutz wieder ab- 
waschen musse, den ihr Goethe durch 50 Jahre mit klassischer 
Hand griindlich einzureiben bemiiht war; dass die Freiheits- 
gedanken, wie sie jetzt gesungen werden, nichts seien als kon- 
ventioneller Trodel, — davon haben nur wenige eine Ahnung." 3 

All these considerations tend to convince us that Lenau's 
Weltschmerz is after all of a much narrower and more personal 
type than Holderlin's. Again and again he runs through the 
gamut of his own painful emotions and experiences, diagnosing 
and dissecting each one, and always with the same gloomy 
result. Consequently his Weltschmerz loses in breadth what 
through the depth of the poet's introspection it gains in in- 
tensity. 

One of the most striking and, unless classed among his 
numerous other pathological traits, one of the most puzzling 
of Lenau's characteristics is the perverseness of his nature. 
His intimate friends were wont to explain it, or rather to leave 
it unexplained by calling it his "Husarenlaune" when the poet 
would give vent to an apparently unprovoked and unreason- 
able burst of anger, and on seeing the consternation of those 
present, would just as suddenly throw himself into a fit of 
laughter quite as inexplicable as his rage. He takes delight 

1 Schlossar, p. 112 f. 

2 "Lenau et son Temps," Paris, 1898, p. 351. 

3 Schlossar, p. 103. 



49 

in things which in the ordinarily constructed mind would 
produce just the reverse feeling. Speaking once of a particu- 
larly ill-favored person of his acquaintance he says : "Eine so 
gewaltige Hasslichkeit bleibt ewig neu und kann sich nie ab- 
niitzen. Es ist was Frisches darin, ich sehe sie gerne." 1 And 
in not a few of his poems we see a certain predilection for the 
gruesome, the horrible. So in the remarkable figure employed 
in "Faust :" 

Die Traume, ungelehr'ge Bestien, schleichen 

Noch immer nach des Wahns verscharrten Leichen. 2 

This perverseness of disposition is in a large measure accounted 
for by the fact that Lenau was eternally at war with himself. 
Speaking in the most general way, Holderlin's Weltschmerz 
had its origin in his conflict with the outer world, Lenau's on 
the other hand must be attributed mainly to the unceasing con- 
flict or "Zwiespalt" within his breast. In his childhood a 
devout Roman Catholic, he shows in his "Faust" (1833-36) a 
mind filled with scepticism and pantheistic ideas ; "Savonarola" 
(1837) marks his return to and glorification of the Christian 
faith; while in the "Albigenser" (1838-42) the poet again 
champions complete emancipation of thought and belief. Only 
a few months elapsed between the writing of the two poems 
"Wanderung im Gebirge" (1830), in which the most orthodox 
faith in a personal God is expressed, and "Die Zweifler" 
(1831). The only consistent feature of his poems is their 
profound melancholy. But Lenau's inner struggle of soul did 
not consist merely in his vacillating between religious faith 
and doubt; it was the conflict of instinct with reason. This is 
evident in his relations with Sophie Lowenthal. He knows 
that their love is an unequal one 3 and chides her for her cold- 
ness, 4 warning her not to humiliate him, not even in jest ; 5 he 
knows too that his alternating moods of exaltation and dejec- 
tion resulting from the intensity of his unsatisfied love are de- 

1 Schlossar, p. 154. 
z Werke, Vol. II, p. 183. 

3 Frankl, p. 99. 

4 Frankl, p. 90. 
B Frankl, p. 90. 

4 



50 

stroying him. 1 "Oetter hat sich der Gedanke bei mir ange- 
meldet: Entschlage dich dieser Abhangigkeit und gestatte 
diesem Weibe keinen so machtigen Einfluss auf deine Stim- 
mungen. Kein Mensch auf Erden soil dich so beherrschen. 
Doch bald stiess ich diesen Gedanken wieder zuriick als einen 
Verrater an meiner Liebe, und ich bot mein reizbares Herz 
wieder gerne dar Deinen zartlichen Misshandlungen. — O ge- 
liebtes Herz ! missbrauche Deine Gewalt nicht ! Ich bitte Dich, 
liebe Sophie !" 2 And yet, in spite of it all, he is unable to 
free himself from the thrall of passion : "Wie wird doch all 
mein Trotz und Stolz so gar zu nichte, wenn die Furcht in mir 
erwacht, dass Du mich weniger liebest" f and all this from the 
same pen that once wrote: "das Wort Gnade hat ein Schuft 
erfunden." 4 

But just as helpless as this defiant pride proved before his 
all-consuming love for Sophie, so strongly did it assert itself 
in all his other relations with men and things. A hasty word 
from one of his best friends could so deeply offend his spirit 
that, according to his own admission, all subsequent apologies 
were futile. 5 For Lenau, then, such an attitude of hero- 
worship as that assumed by Holderlin towards Schiller, would 
have been an utter impossibility. We have already seen the 
extent to which he was over-awed (?) by Goethe's views when 
they were at variance with their own. 6 On another occasion he 
writes: "Was Goethe iiber Ruysdael faselt, kannte ich 
bereits." 7 Toward his critics his bearing was that of haughty 
indifference : "Mag auch das Talent dieser Menchen, mich 
zu insultieren, gross sein, mein Talent, sie zu verachten, ist auf 
alle Falle grosser." 8 When his Fruhlingsalmanach of 1835 
had been received with disfavor by the critics, he professed to 
be concerned only for his publisher : "Ich meinerseits habe 
auf Liebe und Dank nie gezahlt bei meinen Bestrebungen." 9 

1 Frankl, p. 192. 

2 Frankl, p. 173. 

3 Frankl, p. 103. 

4 Schlossar, p. 55. 

B Cf. Schlossar, p. 93 f. 

6 Cf. supra, p. 48. 

7 Schlossar, p. 46. 

8 Schlossar, p. 85. 
8 Schlossar, p. 83. 



51 

"Die (Recensenten) wissen den Teufel von Poesie." 1 Whether 
this real or assumed nonchalance would have stood the test of 
literary disappointments such as Holderlin's, it is needless to 
speculate. 

Holderlin eagerly sought after happiness and contentment, 
but fortune eluded him at every turn. Lenau on the contrary 
thrust it from him with true ascetic spirit. 

The mere thought of submitting to the ordinary process of 
negotiations and recommendations for a vacant professorship 
of Esthetics in Vienna is so repulsive to his pride, that the 
whole matter is at once allowed to drop, notwithstanding that 
he has been preparing for the place by diligent philosophical 
studies. 2 The asceticism with which he regarded life in gen- 
eral is expressed in a letter to Emilie Reinbeck, 1843, in which 
he says: "Wer die Welt gestalten helfen will, muss darauf 
verzichten, sie zu geniessen." 3 But more often this resigna- 
tion becomes a defiant challenge: "Ich habe dem Leben ge- 
geniiber nun einmal meine Stellung genommen, es soil mich 
nicht hinunterkriegen. Dass mein Widerstand nicht der eines 
ruhigen Weisen ist, sondern viel Trotziges an sich hat, das 
liegt in meinen Temperament." 4 

Another characteristic difference between Lenau's Welt- 
schmerz and Holderlin's lies in the fact that the writings of the 
latter do not exhibit that absolute and abject despair which 
marks Lenau's lyrics. Typical for both poets are the lines 
addressed by each to a rose : 

Ewig tragt im Mutterschosse, 
Siisse Konigin der Flur, 
Dich und mich die stille, grosse, 
Allbelebende Natur. 

Roschen unser Schmuck veraltet, 
Sturm entblattert dich und mich, 
Doch der ew'ge Keim entfaltet 
Bald zu neuer Bliite sich ! 5 

1 Schurz, Vol. I, p. 176. 

2 Cf. Schlossar, p. 173. 

3 Schlossar, p. 184. 

4 Schlossar, p. 87. 

5 Holderlin, "An eine Rose," Werke, Vol. I, p. 142. 



52 

Unmistakable as is the melancholy strain of these verses, they 
are not without a hopeful afterthought, in which the poet turns 
from self-contemplation to a view of a larger destiny. Not so 
in Lenau's poem, "Welke Rosen" : 

In einem Buche blatternd, fand 

Ich eine Rose welk, zerdriickt, 

Und weiss auch nicht mehr, wessen Hand 

Sie einst fur mich gepfluckt. 

Ach mehr und mehr im Abendhauch 
Verweht Erinn'rung; bald zerstiebt 
Mein Erdenlos; dann weiss ich auch 
Nicht mehr, wer mich geliebt. 1 

The intensely personal note of the last stanza is in marked con- 
trast with the corresponding stanza of Holderlin's poem just 
quoted. Further evidence that Lenau's Weltschmerz was con- 
stitutional, while Holderlin's was the result of experience, lies 
in this very fact, that nowhere do the writings of the former 
exhibit that stage of buoyant expectation, youthful enthusiasm, 
or hopeful striving, which we find in some of the earlier poems 
of the latter. In Holderlin's ode "An die Hoffnung," he apos- 
trophizes hope as "Holde ! giitig Geschaftige !" 

Die du das Haus der Trauernden nicht verschmahst. 2 
Lenau, in his poem of the same title, tells us he has done with 
hope: 

All dein Wort ist Windesfacheln; 

Hoffnung! dann nur trau' ich dir, 

Weisest du mit Trosteslacheln 

Mir des Todes Nachtrevier. 8 

Even his Faust gives himself over almost from the outset to 
abject despair. 

Logically consequent upon this state of mind is the poet's 
oft-repeated longing for death. The persistency of this 
thought may be best illustrated by a few quotations from 
poems and letters, arranged chronologically: 

1831. Mir wird oft so schwer, als ob ich einen Todten in mir 
herumtriige. 4 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 389- 
2 H61derlins Werke, Vol. I, p. 253. 
8 Werke, Vol. I, p. 99. 
4 Schurz, Vol. I, p. 132. 



53 

i833- Und mir verging die Jugend traurig, 

Des Friihlings Wonne blieb versaumt, 
Der Herbst durchweht mich trennungsschaurig, 
Mein Herz dem Tod entgegentraumt. 1 
1837. Heute dachte ich ofter an den Tod, nicht mit bitterem Trotz 
und storrischem Verlangen, sondern mit freundlichem Ap- 
petit. 2 

1837. Soil ich Dir alles sagen? Wisse, dass ich wirklich daran 

dachte, mir den Tod zu geben. 3 

1838. Der Gedanke des Todes wird mir immer freundlicher, und ich 

verschwende mein Leben gerne. 4 
1838. Durchs Fenster kommt ein diirres Blatt 

Vom Wind hereingetrieben; 
Dies leichte offne Brieflein hat 
Der Tod an mich geschrieben. 5 
1840. Oft will mich's gemahnen, als hatte ich auf Erden nichts 
mehr zu thun, und ich wiinschte dann, Gervinus mochte 
recht haben, indem er, wie Georg mir erzahlte, mir einen 
baldigen Zusammenbruch und Tod prophezeite. 

1842. Ich habe ein wolliistiges Heimweh, in Deinen Armen zu 

sterben. 7 

1843. Selig sind die Betaubten! noch seliger sind die Toten! 8 

1844. In dieses Waldes leisem Rauschen 
1st mir, als hor' ich Kunde wehen, 
Dass alles Sterben und Vergehen 
Nur heimlichstill vergniigtes Tauschen. 9 

If we should seek for the Leit-motif of Lenau's Weltschmerz, 
we should unquestionably have to designate it as the transient- 
ness of life. Thus in the poem "Die Zweifler," he exclaims : 

Verganglichkeit! wie rauschen deine Wellen 
Durch's weite Labyrinth des Lebens fort! 10 

Ten per cent, of all Lenau's lyrics bear titles which directly ex- 
press or suggest this thought, as for example, "Vergangen- 
heit," "Verganglichkeit," "Das tote Gluck," "Einst und Jetzt," 

iWerke, Vol. I, p. 82. 

2 Frankl, p. 79. 

3 Frankl, p. 102. 

4 Frankl, p. 127. 
"Werke, Vol. I, p. 267. 
8 Schlossar, p. 144. 

T Frankl, p. 169. 

8 Schlossar, p. 188. 

9 Werke, Vol. I, p. 405. 
'°Werke, Vol. I, p. 130. 



54 

"Aus!," "Eitel Nichts/' "Verlorenes Gliick," "Welke Rose," 
"Vanitas," "Scheiden," "Scheideblick," and the like; while in 
not less than seventy-one per cent, of his lyrics there are al- 
lusions, more or less direct, to this same idea, which shows 
beyond a doubt how large a component it must have been of 
the poet's characteristic mood. 

If Holderlin, the idealist, judges the things which are, ac- 
cording to his standard of things as they ought to be, Lenau, 
on the other hand, measures them by the things which have 
been. 

Friedhof der entschlafnen Tage, 
Schweigende Vergangenheit! 
Du begrabst des Herzens Klage, 
Ach, und seine Seligkeit I 1 

Nowhere is this mental attitude of the poet toward life in all 
its forms more clearly defined than in his views of nature. 
That this is an entirely different one from Holderlin's goes 
without saying. Lenau has nothing of that naive and un- 
sophisticated childlike nature-sense which Holderlin possessed, 
and which enabled him to find comfort and consolation in 
nature as in a mother's embrace. So that while for Holderlin 
intercourse with nature afforded the greatest relief from his 
sorrows, Lenau's Weltschmerz was on the contrary intensified 
thereby. For him the rose has no fragrance, the sunlight no 
warmth, springtime no charms, in a word, nature has neither 
tone nor temper, until such has been assigned to it by the poet 
himself. And as he is fully aware of the artistic possibilities 
of the mantle of melancholy "urn die wunde Brust geschlun- 
gen," 2 it follows consistently that he should select for poetic 
treatment only those aspects of nature which might serve to 
intensify the expression of his grief. 

Among the titles of Lenau's lyrics descriptive of nature are 
"Herbst," "Herbstgefuhl" (twice), "Herbstlied," "Ein Herbst- 
abend," "Herbstentschluss," "Herbstklage," and many others 
of a similar kind, such as "Das diirre Blatt," "In der Wuste," 
"Friihlings Tod," etc. If we disregard a few quite excep- 

!Werke, Vol. I, p. 62. 
2 Werke, Vol. I, p. 102. 



55 

tional verses on spring, the statement will hold that Lenau sees 
in nature only the seasons and phenomena of dissolution and 
decay. So in "Herbstlied" : 

Ja, ja, ihr lauten Raben, 
Hoch in der kiihlen Luft, 
's geht wieder ans Begraben, 
Ihr flattert um die Graft I 1 

"Je mehr man sich an die Natur anschliesst," the poet writes 
to Sophie Schwab, "je mehr man sich in Betrachtungen ihrer 
Ziige vertieft, desto mehr wird man ergriffen von dem Geiste 
der Sehnsucht, des schwermutigen Hinsterbens, der durch die 
Natur auf Erden weht." 2 Characteristic is the setting which 
the poet gives to the "Waldkapelle" : 

Der dunkle Wald umrauscht den Wiesengrund, 
Gar duster liegt der graue Berg dahinter, 
Das diirre Laub, der Windhauch gibt cs kund, 
Geschritten kommt allmahlig schon der Winter. 

Die Sonne ging, umhiillt von Wolken dicht, 
Unfreundlich, ohne Scheideblick von hinnen, 
Und die Natur verstummt, im Dammerlicht 
Schwermutig ihrem Tode nachzusinnen. 3 

The sunset is represented as a dying of the sun, the leaves fall 
sobbing from the trees, the clouds are dissolved in tears, the 
wind is described as a murderer. We see then that Lenau's 
treatment of nature is essentially different from Holderlin's. 
The latter explains man through nature ; Lenau explains nature 
through man. Holderlin describes love as a heavenly plant, 4 
youth as the springtime of the heart, 5 tears as the dew of 
love ; 6 Lenau, on the other hand, characterizes rain as the tears 
of heaven, for him the woods are glad, 7 the brooklet weeps, 8 
the air is idle, the buds and blossoms listen, 9 the forest in its 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 299. 

2 Cf. Farinelli, in V erhandlungen des 8. deutschen Neuphilologentages, Hannover. 
1898, p. 58. 

3 Werke, Vol. I, p. 137. 
*H61d. Werke, Vol. I, p. 167. 
6 Hold. Werke, Vol. I, p. 143. 
8 Hold. Werke, Vol. I, p. 140. 
T Len. Werke, Vol. I, p. 258. 

8 Len. Werke, Vol. I, p. 250. 

9 Len. Werke, Vol. I, p. 260. 



56 

autumn foliage is "herbstlich gerotet, so wie ein Kranker, der 
sich neigt zum Sterben, wenn fliichtig noch sich seine Wangen 
farben." 1 A remarkable simile, and at the same time char- 
acteristic for Lenau in its morbidness is the following : 

Wie auf dem Lager sich der Seelenkranke, 
Wirft sich der Strauch im Winde hin und her. 2 

Holderlin speaks of a friend's bereavement as "ein schwarzer 
Sturm"; 3 when he had grieved Diotima he compares himself 
to the cloud passing over the serene face of the moon ; 4 gloomy 
thoughts he designates by the common metaphor "der Schatten 
eines Wolkchens auf der Stirne." 5 Lenau turns the compari- 
son and says : 

Am Himmelsantlitz wandelt ein Gedanke, 
Die diistre Wolke dort, so bang, so schwer. 6 

Where Holderlin finds delight in the incorporeal elements 
of nature, such as light, ether, and ascribes personal qualities and 
functions to them, Lenau on the contrary always chooses the 
tangible things and invests them with such mental and moral 
attributes as are in harmony with his gloomy state of mind. 
Consequently Lenau's Weltschmerz never remains abstract; 
indeed, the almost endless variety of concrete pictures in which 
he gives it expression is nothing short of remarkable, not only 
in the sympathetic nature-setting which he gives to his lamen- 
tations, but also in the striking metaphors which he employs. 
Of the former, probably no better illustration could be found 
in all Lenau's poems than his well-known "Schilflieder" 7 and 
his numerous songs to Autumn. One or two examples of his 
incomparable use of nature-metaphors in the expression of 
his Weltschmerz will suffice : 

1 Len. Werke, Vol. I, p. 249. 

2 Len. Werke, Vol. I, p. 147. 

8 Hold. Werke, Vol. I, p. 144. 
*H61d. Werke, Vol. I, p. 164. 

5 Hold. Werke, Vol. II, p. 117. 

6 Len. Werke, Vol. I, p. 147. 
T Werke, Vol. I, p. 51 f. 



57 

Hab' ich gleich, als ich so sacht 
Durch die Stoppeln hingeschritten, 
Aller Sensen auch gedacht, 
Die ins Leben mir geschnitten. 1 

Auch mir ist Herbst, und leiser 
Trag' ich den Berg hinab 
Mein Biindel diirre Reiser 
Die mir das Leben gab. 2 

Der Mond zieht traurig durch die Spharen, 
Denn all die Seinen ruhn im Grab; 
Drum wischt er sich die hellen Zahren 
Bei Nacht an unsern Blumen ab. 3 

The forceful directness of Lenau's metaphors from nature is 
aptly shown in the following comparison of two passages, one 
from Holderlin's "An die Natur," the other from Lenau's 
"Herbstklage," in which both poets employ the same poetic 
fancy to express the same idea. 

Tot ist nun, die mich erzog und stillte, 
Tot ist nun die jugendliche Welt, 
Diese Brust, die einst ein Himmel fullte, 
Tot und durftig wie ein Stoppelfeld.* 

If we compare the simile in the last line with the corresponding 
metaphor used by Lenau in the following stanza, — 

Wie der Wind zu Herbsteszeit 
Mordend hinsaust in den Waldern, 
Weht mir die Vergangenheit 
Von des Glikkes Stoppelfeldern, B 

the greater artistic effectiveness of the latter figure will be at 
once apparent. 

The idea that nature is cruel, even murderous, as suggested 
in the opening lines of the stanza just quoted, seems in the 
course of time to have become firmly fixed in the poet's mind, for 
he not only uses it for poetic purposes, but expresses his con- 
viction of the fact on several occasions in his conversations and 
letters. Tossing some dead leaves with his stick while out 

1 "Der Kranich," Werke, Vol. I, p. 328. 

2 "Herbstlied," Werke, Vol. I, p. 299. 

3 "Mondlied," Werke, Vol. I, p. 310. 
*H61d. Werke, Vol. I, p. 146. 

5 Werke, Vol. I, p. 299. 



58 

walking, he is said to have exclaimed : "Da seht, und dann 
heisst es, die Natur sei liebevoll und schonend ! Nein, sie ist 
grausam, sie hat kein Mitleid. Die Natur ist erbarmungslos I" 1 
It goes without saying that in such a conception of nature the 
poet could find no amelioration of his Weltschmerz. 2 

In summing up the results of our discussion of Lenau's 
Weltschmerz, it would involve too much repetition to mention 
all the points in which it stands, as we have seen, in striking 
contrast to that of Holderlin. Suffice it to recall only the most 
essential features of the comparison : the predominance of 
hereditary and pathological traits as causative influences in 
the case of Lenau ; the fact that whereas Holderlin's quarrel was 
largely with the world, Lenau's was chiefly within himself ; the 
passive and ascetic nature of Lenau's attitude, as compared 
with the often hopeful striving of Holderlin ; the patriotism of 
the latter, and the relative indifference of the former ; Lenau's 
strongly developed erotic instinct, which gave to his relations 
with Sophie such a vastly different influence upon his Welt- 
schmerz from that exerted upon Holderlin by his relations with 
Diotima; and finally the marked difference in the attitude of 
these two poets toward nature. 

A careful consideration of all the points involved will lead to 
no other conclusion than that whereas in Holderlin the cosmic 
element predominates, Lenau stands as a type of egoistic Welt- 
schmerz. To quote from our classification attempted in the 
first chapter, he is one of /'those introspective natures who 
are first and chiefly aware of their own misery, and finally come 
to regard it as representative of universal evil." Nowhere is 
this more clearly stated than in the poet's own words : "Es 
hat etwas Trostliches fur mich, wenn ich in meinem Privatun- 
gliick den Familienzug lese, der durch alle Geschlechter der 
armen Menschen geht. Mein Ungluck ist mir mein Liebstes, — 
und ich betrachte es gerne im verklarenden Lichte eines allge- 
meinen Verhangnisses." 3 

1 Schurz, Vol. II, p. 104. 

2 For an exhaustive discussion of Lenau's nature-sense cf. Prof. Camillo von 
Klenze's excellent monograph on the subject, "The Treatment of Nature in the 
Works of Nikolaus Lenau," Chicago, University Press, 1902. 

8 Frankl, p. 116. 



CHAPTER IV 

Heine 

Heine was probably the first German writer to use the term 
Weltschmerz in its present sense. Breitinger in his essay 
"Neues iiber den alten Weltschmerz" 1 endeavors to trace the 
earliest use of the word and finds an instance of it in Julian 
"Schmidt's "Geschichte der Romantik," 2 1847. He seems to 
have entirely overlooked Heine's use of the word in his discus- 
sion of Delaroche's painting "Oliver Cromwell before the body 
of Charles I." ( 1831) , 3 The actual inventor of the compound 
was no doubt Jean Paul, who wrote (1810) : "Diesen Welt- 
schmerz kann er (Gott) sozusagen nur aushalten durch den 
Anblick der Seligkeit, die nachher vergiitet." 4 

But although Heine may have been the first to adapt the word 
to its present use, and although we have fallen into the habit 
of thinking of him as the chief representative of German Welt- 
schmerz, it must be admitted that there is much less genuine 
Weltschmerz to be found in his poems than in those of either 
Holderlin or Lenau. The reason for this has already been 
briefly indicated in the preceding chapter. Holderlin's Welt- 
schmerz is altogether the most naive of the three ; Lenau's, 
while it still remains sincere, becomes self-conscious, while 
Heine has an unfailing antidote for profound feeling in his 
merciless self-irony. And yet his condition in life was such as 
would have wrung from the heart of almost any other poet 
notes of sincerest pathos. 

In Lenau's case we noted circumstances which point to a 

1 "Studien und Wandertage," Frauenfeld, Huber, 1884. 

2 Vol. II, p. 265. 

8 "Franzosische Maler. Gemalde-Ausstellung in Paris, 1831." Heines Sammtliche 
Werke, mit Einleitung von E. Elster. Leipzig, Bibliogr. Inst, 1890. (Hereafter 
quoted as "Werke.") Vol. IV, p. 61. 

4 "Selina, oder iiber die Unsterblichkeit," II, p. 13.2. 

59 



60 

direct transmission from parent to child of a predisposition to 
melancholia. In Heine's, on the other hand, the question of 
heredity has apparently only an indirect bearing upon his 
Weltschmerz. To what extent was his long and terrible dis- 
ease of hereditary origin, and in what measure may we ascribe 
his Weltschmerz to the sufferings which that disease caused 
him? The first of these questions has been answered as con- 
clusively as seems possible on the basis of all available data, by 
a doctor of medicine, S. Rahmer, in what is at this time the 
most recent and most authoritative study that has been pub- 
lished on the subject. 1 Stage by stage he follows the develop- 
ment of the disease, from its earliest indications in the poet's 
incessant nervous headaches, which he ascribes to neurasthenic 
causes. He attempts to quote all the passages in Heine's let- 
ters which throw light upon his physical condition, and points 
out that in the second stage of the disease the first symptoms 
of paralysis made their appearance as early as 1832, and not 
in 1837 as tne biographers have stated. To this was added in 
1837 an acute affection of the eyes, which continued to recur 
from this time on. In addition to the pathological process 
which led to a complete paralysis of almost the whole body, 
Rahmer notes other symptoms first mentioned in 1846, which 
he describes as "bulbar" in their origin, such as difficulty in 
controlling the muscles of speech, difficulty in chewing and 
swallowing, the enfeebling of the muscles of the lips, disturb- 
ances in the functions of the glottis and larynx, together with 
abnormal secretion of saliva. He discredits altogether the 
diagnosis of Heine's disease as consumption of the spinal mar- 
row, to which Klein-Hattingen in his recent book on Holderlin, 
Lenau and Heine 2 still adheres, dismisses as scientifically unten- 
able the popular idea that the poet's physical dissolution was 
the result of his sensual excesses, finally diagnoses the case as 
"die spinale Form der progressiven Muskelatrophie" 3 and main- 
tains that it was either directly inherited, or at least developed on 

1 "Heinrich Heines Krankheit und Leidensgeschichte." Eine kritische Studie, 
von S. Rahmer, Dr. Med., Berlin, 1901. 

2 "Das Liebesleben Holderlin's, Lenaus, Heines." Berlin, 1901. 

3 Rahmer, op. cit. p. 45. 



61 

the basis of an inherited disposition. 1 He finds further evidence 
in support of the latter theory in the fact that the first symptoms 
of the disease made their appearance in early youth, not many 
years after puberty, and concludes that, in spite of scant infor- 
mation as to Heine's ancestors, we are safe in assuming a heredi- 
tary taint on the father's side. 

The poet himself evidently would have us believe as much, 
for in his Reisebilder he says : "Wie ein Wurm nagte das 
Elend in meinem Herzen und nagte, — ich habe dieses Elend 
mit mir zur Welt gebracht. Es lag schon mit mir in der Wiege, 
und wenn meine Mutter mich wiegte, so wiegte sie es mit, und 
wenn sie mich in den Schlaf sang, so schlief es mit mir ein, und 
es erwachte, sobald ich wieder die Augen aufschlug. Als ich 
grosser wurde, wuchs auch das Elend, und wurde endlich ganz 
gross und zersprengte mein. . . . Wir wollen von andern Dingen 
sprechen. . . ." 2 

And yet Heine's disposition was not naturally inclined to 
hypochondria. In his earlier letters, especially to his intimate 
friends, there is often more than cheerfulness, sometimes a 
decided buoyancy if not exuberance of spirits. A typical 
instance we find in a letter to Moser (1824) : "Ich hoffe Dich 
wohl nachstes Friihjahr wiederzusehen und zu umarmen und 
zu necken und vergnugt zu sein." 3 Only here and there, but 
very rarely, does he acknowledge any influence of his physical 
condition upon his mental labors. To Immermann he writes 
(1823) : "Mein Unwohlsein mag meinen letzten Dichtungen 
auch etwas Krankhaftes mitgeteilt haben." 4 And to Merkel 
(1827) : "Ach! ich bin heute sehr verdriesslich. Krank und 
unfahig, gesund aufzufassen." 5 In the main, however, he 
makes a very brave appearance of cheerfulness, and especially 
of patience, which seems to grow with the hopelessness of his 
affliction. To his mother (1851) : "Ich befinde mich wieder 
krankhaft gestimmt, etwas wohler wie friiher, vielleicht viel 
wohler; aber grosse Nervenschmerzen habe ich noch immer, 

1 Rahmer, p. 46. 

2 Werke, Vol. Ill, p. 194. 

3 Karpeles ed. Werke (2. Aufl.) VIII, p. 441. 

*Ibid., p. 378. 

5 Ibid., p. 520. 



62 

und leider ziehen sich die Krampfe jetzt ofter nach oben, was 
mir den Kopf zuweilen sehr ermudet. So muss ich nun ruhig 
aushalten, was der Hebe Gott iiber mich verhangt, und ich trage 
mein Schicksal mit Geduld. . . . Gottes Wille geschehe I" 1 
Again a few weeks later : "Ich habe mit diesem Leben abge- 
schlossen, und wenn ich so sicher ware, dass ich im Himmel 
einst gut aufgenommen werde, so ertruge ich geduldig meine 
Existenz." 2 Not only to his mother, whom for years he affec- 
tionately kept in ignorance of his deplorable condition, does he 
write thus, but also to Campe (1852) : "Mein Korper leidet 
grosse Qual, aber meine Seele ist ruhig wie ein Spiegel und hat 
manchmal auch noch ihre schonen Sonnenaufgange und Son- 
nenuntergange." 3 1854: "Gottlob, dass ich bei all meinem 
Leid sehr heiteren Gemtites bin, und die lustigsten Gedanken 
springen mir durchs Him."* Much of this sort of thing was no 
doubt nicely calculated for effect, and yet these and similar pas- 
sages show that he was not inclined to magnify his physical 
afflictions either in his own eyes or in the eyes of others. Nor is 
he absolutely unreconciled to his fate : "Es ist mir nichts 
gegliickt in dieser Welt, aber es hatte mir doch noch schlimmer 
gehen konnen." 5 

In his poems, references to his physical sufferings are re- 
markably infrequent. We look in vain in the "Buch der 
Lieder," in the "Neue Gedichte," in fact in all his lyrics written 
before the "Romanzero," not only for any allusion to his illness, 
but even for any complaint against life which might have been 
directly occasioned by his physical condition. What is there 
then in these earlier poems that might fitly be called Welt- 
schmerz? Very little, we shall find. 

Their inspiration is to be found almost exclusively in Heine's 
love-affairs, decent and indecent. Now the pain of disap- 
pointed love is the motive and the theme of very many of 
Holderlin's and Lenau's lyrics, poems which are heavy with 
Weltschmerz, while most of Heine's are not. To speak only 

1 Karpeles ed. Werke, IX, p. 371. 
*Ibid., p. 374. 
' Ibid., p. 4S9 ff. 
*Ibid., p. 513. 
Ibid., p. 475. 



63 

of the poet's most important attachments, of his unrequited 
love for his cousin Amalie, and his unsuccessful wooing of her 
sister Therese, — there can be no doubt that these unhappy loves 
brought years of pain and bitterness into his life, sorrow prob- 
ably as genuine as any he ever experienced, and yet how little, 
comparatively, there is in his poetry to convince us of the fact. 
Nearly all these early lyrics are variations of this love-theme, 
and yet it is the exception rather than the rule when the poet 
maintains a sincere note long enough to engender sympathy 
and carry conviction. Such are his beautiful lyrics "Ich grolle 
nicht," 1 "Du hast Diamanten und Perlen." 2 
Let us see how Lenau treats the same theme: 

Die dunklen Wolken hingen 
Herab so bang und schwer, 
Wir beide traurig gingen 
Im Garten hin und her. 

So heiss und stumm, so triibe, 
Und sternlos war die Nacht, 
So ganz wie unsre Liebe 
Zu Thranen nur gemacht. 

Und als ich musste scheiden 
Und gute Nacht dir bot, 
Wunscht' ich bekummert beiden 
Im Herzen uns den Tod. 8 

We believe implicitly in the poet's almost inexpressible grief, 
and because we are convinced, we sympathize. And we feel 
too that the poet's sorrow is so overwhelming and has so filled 
his soul that it has entirely changed his views of life and of 
nature, or has at least contributed materially to such a 
change, — that it has assumed larger proportions and may 
rightly be called Weltschmerz. Compare with this the first 
and third stanzas of Heine's "Der arme Peter :" 

Der Hans und die Grete tanzen herum, 
Und jauchzen vor lauter Freude. 
Der Peter steht so still und stumm, 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 72, Nos. 18 and 19. 
2 Werke, Vol. I, p. 123, No. 62. 
3 Lenaus Werke, Vol. I, p. 257 ff. 



64 

Und ist so blass wie Kreide. 

Der Peter spricht leise vor sich her 
Und schauet betriibet auf beide : 
"Ach ! wenn ich nicht zu verniinftig war', 
Ich that' mir was zu leide." 1 

It is scarcely necessary to cite further examples of this man- 
nerism of Heine's, for so it early became, such as his "Erbsen- 
suppe," 2 "Ich wollte, er schosse mich tot," 3 "Doktor, sind Sie 
des Teufels ;" 4 "Madame, ich Hebe Sie !" 5 and many other glar- 
ing instances of the "Sturzbad," in order to show how the poet 
himself deliberately attempted, and usually with success, to 
destroy the traces of his grief. This process of self-irony, 
which plays such havoc with all sincere feeling and therefore 
with his Weltschmerz, becomes so fixed a habit that we are 
almost incapable, finally, of taking the poet seriously. He 
makes a significant confession in this regard in a letter to 
Moser (1823) : "Aber es geht mir oft so, ich kann meine 
eigenen Schmerzen nicht erzahlen, ohne dass die Sache 
komisch wird." How thoroughly this mental attitude had 
become second nature with Heine, may be inferred from a 
statement which he makes to Friederike Roberts (1825) : 
"Das Ungeheuerste, das Ensetzlichste, das Schaudervollste, 
wenn es nicht unpoetisch werden soil, kann man auch nur in 
dem buntscheckigen Gewande des Lacherlichen darstellen, 
gleichsam versohnend — darum hat auch Shakespeare das 
Grasslichste im "Lear" durch den Narren sagen lassen, darum 
hat auch Goethe zu dem furchtbarsten Stoffe, zum "Faust," die 
Puppenspielform gewahlt, darum hat auch der noch grossere 
Poet (der Urpoet, sagt Friederike), namlich Unser-Herrgott, 
alien Schreckensszenen dieses Lebens eine gute Dosis Spass- 
haftigkeit beigemischt." 7 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 37. 

2 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 11. 

3 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 97. 

4 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 177. 
B Ibid., Vol. I, p. 197. 

6 Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 408. 

7 Ibid., p. 468. 



65 

In not a few of his lyrics Heine gives us a truly Lenauesque 
nature-setting, as for instance in "Der scheidende Sommer :" 

Das gelbe Laub erzittert, 
Es fallen die Blatter herab; 
Ach, alles, was hold und lieblich 
Verwelkt und sinkt ins Grab. 1 

This is one of the comparatively few instances in Heine's 
lyrics in which he maintains a dignified seriousness throughout 
the entire poem. It is worth noting, too, because it touches a 
note as infrequent in Heine as it is persistent in Lenau — the 
fleeting nature of all things lovely and desirable. 2 This is one 
of the characteristic differences between the two poets, — 
Heine's eye is on the present and the future, much more than 
on the past ; Lenau is ever mourning the happiness that is past 
and gone. Logically then, thoughts of and yearnings for 
death are much more frequent with Lenau than with Heine. 3 

Reverting to the point under consideration : even in those 
love-lyrics in which Heine does not wilfully destroy the first 
serious impression by the jingling of his harlequin's cap, as 
he himself styles it, 4 he does not succeed, — with the few excep- 
tions just referred to, — in convincing us very deeply of the 
reality of his feelings. They are either trivially or extrava- 
gantly stated. Sometimes this sense of triviality is caused by 
the poet's excessive fondness for all sorts of diminutive ex- 
pressions, giving an artificial effect, an effect of "Tandelei" 
to his verses. For example : 

Du siehst mich an wehmiitiglich, 
Und schuttelst das blonde Kopfchen, 
Aus deinen Augen schleichen sich 
Die Perlenthranentropfchen. 6 

Sometimes this effect is produced by a distinct though unin- 

1 Karpeles ed. Werke, Vol. II, p. 31. 

2 A few other examples of this same coloring in Heine's lyrics are to be found 
in the "Neuer Friihling," Nos. 40, 41 and 43. 

8 Werke, Vol. II, p. 89, No. 55, "O Gott, wie hasslich bitter ist das Sterben!" 
etc. 

*Engel: "Heine's Memoiren," p. 133. 
B Werke, Vol. I, p. 87. 
5 



66 

tended anti-climax. Nowhere has Heine struck a more truly- 
elegiac note than in the stanza : 

Der Tod, das ist die kuhle Nacht, 
Das Leben ist der schwiile Tag. 
Es dunkelt schon, mich schlafert, 
Der Tag hat mich miide gemacht. 1 

There is the most profound Weltschmerz in that. But in the 
second stanza there is relatively little : 

Ueber mein Bett erhebt sich ein Baum, 
Drin singt die junge Nachtigall; 
Sie singt von lauter Liebe, 
Ich hor' es sogar im Traum. 

Lenau's lyrics have shown that much Weltschmerz may grow 
out of unsatisfied love ; Heine's demonstrate that mere love- 
sickness is not Weltschmerz. The fact is that Heine fre- 
quently destroys what would have been a certain impression of 
Weltschmerz by forcing upon us the immediate cause of his 
distemper, — it may be a real injury, or merely a passing annoy- 
ance. What a strange mixture of acrimonious, sarcastic pro- 
test and Weltschmerz elements we find in the poem "Ruhelech- 
zend" 2 of which a few stanzas will serve to illustrate. Again 
he strikes a full minor chord: 

Las bluten deine Wunden, lass 
Die Thranen fliessen unaufhaltsam; 
Geheime Wollust schwelgt im Schmerz, 
Und Weinen ist ein siisser Balsam. 

This in practice rather than in theory is what we observe in 
Lenau, — his melancholy satisfaction in nursing his grief, — 
and we have promise of a poem of genuine Weltschmerz. 
Even through the second and third stanzas this feeling is not 
destroyed, although the terms "Schelm" and "Tdlpel" gently 
arouse our suspicion : 

Des Tages Larm verhallt, es steigt 
Die Nacht herab mit langen Flohren. 
In ihrem Schosse wird kein Schelm, 
Kein Tolpel deine Ruhe storen. 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 134. 

2 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 102. 



67 

But the very next stanza brings the transition from the sublime 
to the ridiculous : 

Hier bist du sicher vor Musik, 
Vor des Pianofortes Folter, 
Und vor der grossen Oper Pracht 
Und schrecklichem Bravourgepolter. 



O Grab, du bist das Paradies 
Fur pobelscheue, zarte Ohren — 
Der Tod ist gut, doch besser war's, 
Die Mutter hatt' uns nie geboren. 



It is scarcely necessary to point out that the specific cause 
which the poet confides to us of his "wounds, tears and pains" 
is ridiculously unimportant as compared with the conclusion 
which he draws in the last two lines. 

, Evidently then, he does not wish us to take him seriously, 
nor could we, if he did. Thus in their very attitude toward 
the ills and vexations of life, there appears a most essential 
difference between Lenau and Heine. Auerbach aptly re- 
marks : "Spott und Satire verkleinern, Zorn und Hass ver- 
grossern das Object." 1 And Lenau knew no satire; where 
Heine scoffed and ridiculed, he hated and scorned, with a 
hatred that only contributed to his own undoing. With Heine 
the satire's the thing, whether of himself or of others, and to 
this he willingly sacrifices the lofty sentiments of which he is 
capable. Indeed he frequently introduces these for no other 
purpose than to make the laugh or grimace all the more strik- 
ing. And with reference to his love affair with Amalie, while 
the question as to the reality and depth of his feelings may be 
left entirely out of discussion, this much may be safely asserted, 
that in comparatively few poems do those feelings find expres- 
sion in the form of Weltschmerz. Now there is something 
essentially vague about Weltschmerz; it is an atmosphere, a 
"Stimmung" more or less indefinable, rather than the state- 
ment in lyric form of certain definite grievances with their par- 
ticular and definite causes. And that is exactly what we find 
in Lenau, even in his love-songs. His love-sorrow is blended 
with his many other heart-aches, with his disappointments and 

1 "Nicolaus Lenau. Erinnerung und Betrachtung." Wien, 1876. 



68 

regrets, with his yearning for death. He sings of his pain 
rather than of its immediate causes, and the result is an atmos- 
phere of Weltschmerz. 

Turning to Heine's later poems, especially to the "Roman- 
zero," we find that atmosphere much more perceptible. But 
even here the poet is for the most part specific, and his method 
concrete. So for instance in "Der Dichter Firdusi" 1 in which 
he tells a story to illustrate his belief that merit is appreciated 
and rewarded only after the death of the one who should have 
reaped the reward. So also in "Weltlauf," 2 the first stanza of 
which suggests a poetic rendering of Matth. 13:12, "For who- 
soever hath, to him shall be given and he shall have more 
abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken 
away even that he hath,"-^to which the poet adds a stanza of 
caustic ironical comment: 

Wenn du aber gar nichts hast, 
Ach, so lasse dich begraben — 
Denn ein Recht zum Leben, Lump, 
Haben nur, die etwas haben. 

And again, the poem "Lumpentum" 3 presents an ironical 
eulogy of flattery. His failure to realize the hopes of his youth 
is made the subject of "Verlorne Wunsche" 4 which maintains 
throughout a strain of seriousness quite unusual for Heine, 
and concludes : 

Goldne Wunsche ! Seifenblasen ! 
Sie zerrinnen wie mein Leben — 
Ach ich liege jetzt am Boden, 
Kann mich nimmermehr erheben. 

Und Ade ! sie sind zerronnen, 
Goldne Wunsche, susses Hoffen ! 
Ach, zu totlich war der Faustschlag, 
Der mich just ins Herz getroffen. 

A number of these lyrics from the Romanzero show very 
strikingly Heine's objective treatment of his poems of com- 
plaint. Such selections as "Sie erlischt," 5 in which he com- 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 367L 

2 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 415. 
3 fbid„Vol. I, p. 48. 

4 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 42 f. 
6 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 428. 



69 

pares his soul to the last flicker of a lamp in the darkened 
theater, or "Frau Sorge," 1 which gives us the personification of 
care, represented as a nurse watching by his bedside, bring his 
objective method into marked contrast with Holderlin's sub- 
jective Weltschmerz. The same may be said of his auto- 
biography in miniature, "Riickschau," 2 which catalogues the 
poet's experiences, pleasant and adverse, with evident sincerity 
though of course with a liberal admixture of witty irony. 
Needless to say there is no real Weltschmerz discoverable in 
such a pot pourri as the following : 

Die Glieder sind mir rheumatisch gelahmt, 
Und meine Seele ist tief beschamt. 



Ich ward getrankt mit Bitternissen, 

Und grausam von den Wanzen gebissen, etc. 

It would scarcely be profitable to attempt to estimate the 
causes and development of this self-irony, which plays so im- 
portant a part in Heine's poetry. Its possibility lay no doubt 
in his native mother-wit, with its genial perception of the in- 
congruous, combined, it must be admitted, with a relatively 
low order of self-respect. Its first incentive he may have 
found in his unrequited love for Amalie. Had it been like 
that of Holderlin for Diotima, or Lenau for Sophie, recipro- 
cated though unsatisfied, we could not easily imagine the 
ironical tone which pervades most of his love-songs. And so 
he uses it as a veil for his chagrin, preferring to laugh and 
have the world laugh with him, rather than to weep alone. 
But the incident in Heine's life which probably more than 
any other experience fostered this habit of making him- 
self the butt of his witty irony was his outward renunciation 
of Judaism. Little need be said concerning this, since the 
details are so well known. He himself confesses that the step 
was taken from the lowest motives, for which he justly hated 
and despised himself. To Moser he writes (1825): "Ich 
weiss nicht, was ich sagen soil, Cohen versichert mich, Gans 
predige das Christentum und suche die Kinder Israels zu be- 

1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 424. 
2 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 416. 



70 

kehren. Thut er dieses aus Ueberzeugung, so ist er ein Narr ; 
thut er es aus Gleissnerei, so ist er ein Lump. Ich werde zwar 
nicht aufhoren, Gans zu lieben; dennoch gestehe ich, weit 
lieber war's mir gewesen, wenn ich statt obiger Nachricht 
erfahren hatte, Gans habe silberne Loffel gestohlen. . . . Es 
ware mir sehr leid, wenn mein eigenes Getauftsein Dir in 
einem giinstigen Lichte erscheinen konnte. Ich versichere 
Dich, wenn die Gesetze das Stehlen silberner Loffel erlaubt 
hatten, so wiirde ich mich nicht getauft haben." 1 But in addi- 
tion to the loss of self-respect came his disappointment and 
chagrin at the non-success of his move, since he realized that 
it was not even bringing him the material gain for which he 
had hoped. Instead, he felt himself an object of contempt 
among Christians and Jews alike. "Ich bin jetzt bei Christ 
und Jude verhasst. Ich bereue sehr, dass ich mich getauft 
hab' ; ich sehe gar nicht ein, dass es mir seitdem besser gegan- 
gen sei ; im Gegenteil-j ich habe seitdem nichts als Ungliick." 2 
He is so unhappy in consequence of this step that he earnestly 
desires to leave Germany. "Es ist aber ganz bestimmt, dass es 
mich sehnlichst drangt, dem deutschen Vaterlande Valet zu 
sagen. Minder die Lust des Wanderns als die Qual person- 
licher Verhaltnisse (z. B. der nie abzuwaschende Jude) treibt 
mich von hinnen." 3 

In his tragedy "Almansor," written during the years 1820 and 
1821, 4 his deep-rooted antipathy to Christianity finds strong ex- 
pression through Almansor, although the countervailing argu- 
ments are eloquently stated by the heroine. Prophetic of the 
poet's own later experience is the representation of the hero, 
who is beguiled by his love for Zuleima into vowing allegiance 
to the Christian faith, only to find that the sacrifice has failed 
to win for him the object for which it was made. In the char- 
acter of Almansor, more than anywhere else, Heine's "Liebes- 
schmerz" and "Judenschmerz" have combined to produce in 
him an inner dissonance which expresses itself in lyric lines of 
real Weltschmerz : 

1 Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 473. 

2 Cf. Heine's letter to Moser, Jan. 9, 1826, in Karpeles' Autob. p. 191. 

3 Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 491. 

4 Cf. Werke, Einleitung, Vol. II, p. 241. 



i' 71 

Ich bin recht mud 
Und krank, und kranker noch als krank, denn ach, 
Die allerschlimmste Krankheit ist das Leben ; 
Und heilen kann sie nur der Tod 1 

But here too, as in "Ratcliff," such passages are exceptional. 
In the main these tragedies are nothing more than vehicles for 
the poet's stormy protest, much of it after the Storm and 
Stress pattern ; 2 and mere protest, however acrimonious, can- 
not be called Weltschmerz. 

Certain it is that during these early years numerous disap- 
pointments other than those of love contributed to produce in 
the poet a gloomy state of mind. A reflection of the unhap- 
piness which he had experienced during his residence in Ham- 
burg is found in many passages in his correspondence which 
, express his repugnance for the city and its people. To Im- 
manuel Wohlwill (1823) : "Es freut mich, dass es Dir in den 
Armen der aimablen Hammonia zu behagen beginnt; mir ist 
diese Schone zuwider. Mich tauscht nicht der goldgestickte 
Rock, ich weiss, sie tragt ein schmutziges Hemd auf dem 
gelben Leibe, und mit den schmelzenden Liebesseufzern 'Rind- 
fleisch 3 Banko !' sinkt sie an die Brust des Meistbietenden. . . . 
Vielleicht thue ich aber der guten Stadt Hamburg unrecht ; die 
Stimmung, die mich beherrschte, als ich dort einige Zeit lebte, 
war nicht dazu geeignet, mich zu einem unbefangenen Beur- 
teiler zu machen; mein inneres Leben war briitendes Versin- 
ken in den diisteren, nur von phantastischen Lichtern durch- 
blitzten Schacht der Traumwelt, mein ausseres Leben war 
toll, wiist, cynisch, abstossend ; mit einem Worte. ich machte es 
zum schneidenden Gegensatz meines inneren Lebens, damit 
mich dieses nicht durch sein Uebergewicht zerstore." 3 To 
Moser (1823) : "Hamburg? sollte ich dort noch so viele Freu- 
den finden konnen, als ich schon Schmerzen dort empfand? 
Dieses ist freilich unmoglich — " 4 "Hamburg ! ! ! mein Elysium 
und Tartarus zu gleicher Zeit ! Ort, den ich detestiere und am 
meisten Hebe, wo mich die abscheulichsten Gefiihle martern und 

1 Werke, Vol. II, p. 293. 

2 Cf. Almansor's speech, Werke, Vol. II, p. 288 f. 

3 Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 363. 

4 Ibid., p. 384- 



72 

wo ich mich dennoch hinwiinsche." 1 Another letter to Moser 
is dated: "Verdammtes Hamburg, den 14. Dezember, 1825. " 2 
The following year he writes, in a letter to Immermann : 'Teh 
verliess Gottingen, suchte in Hamburg ein Unterkommen, fand 
aber nichts als Feinde, Verklatschung und Aerger." 3 And to 
Varnhagen von Ense (1828) : "Nach Hamburg werde ich nie 
in diesem Leben zuriickkehren ; es sind mir Dinge von der aus- 
sersten Bitterkeit dort passiert, sie waren auch nicht zu ertragen 
gewesen, ohne den Umstand, dass nur ich sie weiss." 4 To his 
mother's insistent pleading he replies (1833) : ''Aber ich will, 
wenn Du es durchaus verlangst, diesen Sommer auf acht Tage 
nach Hamburg kommen, nach dem schandlichen Neste, wo ich 
meinen Feinden den Triumph gonnen soil, mich wiederzusehen 
und mit Beleidigungen uberhaufen zu konnen." 5 

His several endeavors to establish himself on a firm material 
footing in life had failed, — he had sought for a place in a 
Berlin high school, then entertained the idea of practising law 
in Hamburg, then aspired to a professorship in Munich, but 
without success. But more than by all these reverses, more 
even than by the circumstances and consequences of his Hebrew 
parentage, was the poet wrought up by the family strife over the 
payment of his pension, which followed upon the death of his 
uncle in December, 1844, and which lasted for several years. 
From the very beginning he had had much intermittent annoy- 
ance through his dealings with his sporadically generous uncle 
Salomon Heine. As early as 1823 Heine writes to Moser: 
"Auch weiss ich, dass mein Oheim, der sich hier so gemein 
zeigt, zu andern Zeiten die Generositat selbst ist; aber es ist 
doch in mir der Vorsatz aufgekommen, alles anzuwenden, um 
mich so bald als moglich von der Gute meines Oheims loszureis- 
sen. Jetzt habe ich ihn freilich noch notig, und wie knickerig 
auch die Unterstiitzung ist, die er mir zufliessen lasst, so kann 
ich dieselbe nicht entbehren." 6 And again in the same year : 
"Es ist fatal, dass bei mir der ganze Mensch durch das Budget 

1 Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 391. 

2 Ibid., p. 472. 
8 Ibid., p. 503. 

4 Ibid., p. 540. 

5 Ibid., IX, p. 25. 

6 Ibid., VIII, p. 392. 



73 

regiert wird. Auf meine Grundsatze hat Geldmangel oder 
Ueberfluss nicht den mindesten Einfluss, aber desto mehr auf 
meine Handlungen. Ja, grosser Moser, der H. Heine ist sehr 
klein." 1 And when, after his uncle's demise, the heirs of the 
latter threatened to cut off the poet's pension, he writes to 
Campe 2 and to Detmold, 3 in a frenzy of wrath and excitement, 
and shows what he is really capable of under pressure of cir- 
cumstances. Perhaps it is only fair to suppose that his long 
years of suffering, both from his physical condition and from 
the unscrupulous attacks of his enemies, had had a corroding 
effect upon his moral sensibilities. In his request to Campe 
to act as mediator in the disagreeable affair he says : "Sie kon- 
nen alle Schuld des Missverstandnisses auf mich schieben, die 
Grossmut der Familie hervorstreichen, kurz, mich sacrificiren." 
And all this to be submitted to the public in print ! "Ich gestehe 
Ihnen heute offen, ich habe gar keine Eitelkeit in der Weise 
andrer Menschen, mir liegt am Ende gar nichts an der Meinung 
des Publikums; mir ist nur eins wichtig, die Befriecligung 
meines inneren Willens, die Selbstachtung meiner Seele." But 
how he was able to preserve his self-respect, and at the same 
time be willing to employ any and all means to attain his end, 
perhaps no one less unscrupulous than he could comprehend. 
He intimates that he has decided upon threats and public 
intimidation as being probably more effective than a servile 
attitude, which, he allows us to infer, he would be quite willing 
to take if advisable. "Das Beste muss hier die Presse thun zur 
Intimidation, und die ersten Kotwtirfe auf Karl Heine und 
namentlich auf Adolf Halle werden schon wirken. Die Leute 
sind an Dreck nicht gewohnt, wahrend ich ganze Mistkarren 
vertragen kann, ja diese, wie auf Blumenbeeten, nur mein 
Gedeihen zeitigen." 4 

It is quite evident that this long drawn out quarrel aroused 
all that was mean and vindictive, all that was immoral in the 
man, and that the nervous excitement thereby induced had a 
most baneful effect upon his entire nature, physical as well as 

1 Karpeles ed. VIII, p. 396. 

2 Ibid., IX, p. 308 ff. 

3 Ibid., p. 316. 

4 Letter to Detmold, Jan. 9, 1845, Werke (Karpeles ed.), Vol. IX, p. 310. 



74 

mental. In a number of poems he has given expression to his 
anger and has masterfully cursed his adversaries, for example, 
"Es gab den Dolch in deine Hand," 1 "Sie kiissten mich mit 
ihren falschen Lippen,'' 2 and several following ones. But here, 
too, his fancy is altogether too busy with the suitable charac- 
terization of his enemies and the invention of adequate tortures 
for them, to leave room for even a suggestion of the Welt- 
schmerz which we might expect to result from such painful 
emotions. 

It is scarcely necessary to theorize as to what would have been 
the attitude .and conduct of a sensitive Holderlin or a proud- 
spirited Lenau in a similar position. Lenau is too proud to 
protest, preferring to suffer. Heine is too vain to appear as a 
sufferer, so he meets adversity, not in a spirit of admirable cour- 
age, but in a spirit of bravado. In giving lyric utterance to his 
resentment, Heine is conscious that the world is looking on, 
and so he indulges, even in the expression of his Weltschmerz, 
in a vain ostentation which stands in marked contrast to Lenau's 
dignified pride. He is quite right when he says in a letter to 
his friend Moser: "Ich bin nicht gross genug, um Erniedri- 
gung zu tragen." 3 " 

As an illustration of the vain display which he makes of his 
sadness, his poem "Der Traurige" may be quoted in part : 

Allen thut es weh in Herzen, 
Die den bleichen Knaben sehn, 
Dem die Leiden, dem die Schmerzen 
Auf's Gesicht geschrieben stehn. 4 

A similar impression is made by the concluding numbers of 
the Intermezzo, "Die alten, bosen Lieder." 5 And here again 
the comparison, — even if merely as to size, — of a coffin with 
the "Heidelberger Fass" is most incongruous, to say the least, 
and tends very effectually to destroy the serious sentiment 
which the poem, with less definite exaggerations, might have 

1 Werke, Vol. II, p. 104. 

2 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 105. 

3 Cf. Karpeles' Autob. p. 164. 
* Werke, Vol. I, p. 35. 

B Ibid., Vol. I, p. 92. 



75 

conveyed. Similarly overdone is his poetic preface to the 
"Rabbi" sent to his friend Moser i 1 

Brich aus in lauten Klagen 
Du diistres Martyrerlied, 
Das ich so lang getragen 
Im flammenstillen Gemiit ! 

Es dringt in alle Ohren, 
Und durch die Ohren ins Herz; 
Ich habe gewaltig beschworen 
Den tausendjahrigen Schmerz. 

Es weinen dir Grossen und Kleinen, 
Sogar die kalten Herrn, 
Die Frauen und Blumen weinen, 
Es weinen am Himmel die Stern. 

It is not necessary, even if it were to the point, to adduce 
further evidence of Heine's vanity as expressed in his prose 
writings, or in poems such as the much-quoted 

Nennt man die besten Namen, 
So wird auch der meine genannt. 2 

It cannot be denied that this element of vanity, of showiness, 
only serves to emphasize our impression of the unreality of 
much of Heine's Weltschmerz. 

With the reference to this element of ostentation in Heine's 
Weltschmerz there is suggested at once the question of the 
Byronic pose, and of Byron's influence in general upon the 
German poet. On the general relationship between the two 
poets much has been written, 3 so that we may confine ourselves 
here to the consideration of certain points of resemblance in 
their Weltschmerz. 

Julian Schmidt names Byron as the constellation which ruled 
the heavens during the period from the Napoleonic wars to the 
"Volkerfruhling," 1848, as the meteor upon which at that time 
the eyes of all Europe were fixed. Certainly the English poet 
could not have wished for a more auspicious introduction and 

1 Werke, Vol. II, p. 164. 

2 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 102. 

3 One of the most exhaustive monographs on the subject is that of Felix Met 
chior (Cf. bibliography, infra p. 90), to whom I am indebted for several of the 
parallels suggested. 



76 

endorsation in Germany, if he had needed such, than that 
which was given him by Goethe himself, whose subsequent 
tribute in his Euphorion in the second part of "Faust" is one 
of Byron's most splendid memorials. The enthusiasm which 
Lord Byron aroused in Germany is attested by Goethe : "Im 
Jahre 1816, also einige Jahre nach dem Erscheinen des ersten 
Gesanges des 'Childe Harold,' trat englische Poesie und 
Literatur vor alien andern in den Vordergrund. Lord Byrons 
Gedichte, je mehr man sich mit den Eigenheiten dieses ausser- 
ordentlichen Geistes bekannt machte, gewannen immer grossere 
Teilnahme, so dass Manner und Frauen, Magdlein und Jung- 
gesellen fast aller Deutschheit und Nationalist zu vergessen 
schienen." 1 

It is important to note that this first period of unrestrained 
Byron enthusiasm coincides with the formative and impres- 
sionable years of Heine's youth. In his first book of poems, 
published in 182 1, he included translations from Byron, in 
reviewing which Immermann pointed out 2 that while Heine's 
poems showed a superficial resemblance to those of Byron, the 
temperament of the former was far removed from the sinister 
scorn of the English lord, that it was in fact much more 
cheerful and enamored of life. 3 There is plenty of evidence, 
however, to show that it was exceedingly gratifying to the 
young Heine to have his name associated with that of Byron; 
and although he had no enthusiasm for Byron's philhellenism, 
he was pleased to write, June 25, 1824, on hearing of the 
Englishman's death : "Der Todesfall Byrons hat mich 
iibrigens sehr bewegt. Es war der einzige Mensch, mit dem 
ich mich verwandt fiihlte, und wir mogen uns wohl in 
manchen Dingen geglichen haben ; scherze nur dariiber, soviel 
Du willst. Ich las ihn selten seit einigen Jahren; man geht 
lieber urn mit Menschen, deren Charakter von dem unsrigen 
verschieden ist. Ich bin aber mit Byron immer behaglich ura- 
gegangen, wie mit einem vollig gleichen Spiesskameraden. 
Mit Shakespeare kann ich gar nicht behaglich umgehen, ich 

1 Weimar Ausg. I Abt. Bd. 36, p. 128. 

- In the Rheinisch-westfalischer Anseiger, May 31, 1822, No. 23. 
3 Cf. Strodtmann, "H. Heines Leben und Werke,'' 3. ed., Hamburg, 1884. 
Vol. I, p. 200. 



77 

fuhle nur zu sehr, dass ich nicht seinesgleichen bin, er ist der 
allgewaltige Minister, und ich bin ein blosser Hofrat, und es 
ist mir, als ob er mich jeden Augenblick absetzen konnte." 1 
Significant is the allusion in this same letter to a proposition 
which the writer seems to have made to his friend in a 
previous one: "... ich darf Dir Dein Versprechen in Hin- 
sicht des 'Morgenblattes' durchaus nicht erlassen. Robert 
besorgt gern den Aufsatz. Byron ist jetzt tot, und ein Wort 
iiber ihn ist jetzt passend. Vergiss es nicht; Du thust mir 
einen sehr grossen Gefallen." 2 We shall probably not be far 
astray in assuming that the "Gefallen" was to have been the 
advertising of Heine as the natural successor of Byron in 
European literature. Three months later he once more urges 
the request: "Audi fande ich es noch immer angemessen, ja 
, jetzt mehr als je, dass Du Dich iiber Byron und Komp. verneh- 
men liessest." 3 

But it was not long before Heine, with an increasing sense 
of literary independence, reinforced no doubt by the reaction 
of public opinion against Byron, and influenced also by his 
friend Immermann's judgment in particular, 4 was no longer 
willing to be considered a disciple of the English master. 
Several unmistakable references betoken this change of heart, 
for example, the following from his "Nordsee" III (1826): 
"Wahrlich in diesem Augenblicke fuhle ich sehr lebhaft, dass 
ich kein Nachbeter, oder, besser gesagt, Nachfrevler, Byrons 
bin, mein Blut ist nicht so spleenisch schwarz, meine Bitterkeit 
kommt nur aus den Gallapfeln meiner Dinte, und wenn Gift in 
mir ist, so ist es doch nur Gegengift, Gegengift wider jene 
Schlangen, die im Schutte der alten Dome und Burgen so be- 
drohlich lauern." 5 Byron, instead of being regarded as "kin- 
dred spirit" and "cousin," is now characterized as a ruthless de- 

1 Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 434. 

2 Ibid., p. 433. 
8 Ibid., p. 441. 

4 In discussing the first volume of Heine's "Reisebilder," Immermann had said: 
"Man hat Heinen beim Beginn seiner dichterischen Laufbahn mit Byron vergleichen 
wollen. Diese Vergleichung scheint nicht zu passen. Der Brite bringt mit tin- 
geheuren Mitteln nur massige poetische Effekte hervor, wahrend Heine eine Anlage 
zeigt, sich kunstlerisch zu begrenzen und den Stoff ganzlich in die Form zu absor- 
bieren." (Jahrbiicher f. wissenschaftliche Kritik, 1827, No. 97, p. 767.) 

5 Werke, III, p. 116. 



78 

stroyer of venerable forms, injuring the most sacred flowers of 
life with his melodious poison, or as a mad harlequin who 
thrusts the steel into his heart, in order that he may teasingly 
bespatter ladies and gentlemen with the black spurting blood. 
In remarkable contrast with his former views, he now writes : 
"Von alien grossen Schriftstellern ist Byron just derjenige, 
dessen Lektiire mich am unleidigsten beruhrt." 

Perhaps the most interesting passage in this connection, 
because so thoroughly characteristic of the Byronic pose in 
Heine, occurs in the "Bader von Lucca" : "Lieber Leser, 
gehorst du vielleicht zu jenen frommen Vogeln, die da ein- 
stimmen in das Lied von Byronischer Zerrissenheit, das mir 
schon seit zehn Jahren in alien Weisen vorgepfiffen und vor- 
gezwitschert worden ... 2 Ach, teurer Leser, wenn du 
iiber jene Zerrissenheit klagen willst, so beklage lieber, dass die 
Welt selbst mitten entzwei gerissen ist. Denn da das Herz des 
Dichters der Mittelpunkt der Welt ist, so musste es wohl in 
jetziger Zeit jammerlich zerrissen werden. Wer von seinem 
Herzen ruhmt, es sei ganz geblieben, der gesteht nur, dass er 
ein prosaisches, weitabgelegenes Winkelherz hat. Durch das 
meinige ging aber der grosse Weltriss, und eben deswegen weiss 
ich, dass die grossen Gotter mich vor vielen andern hoch 
begnadigt und des Dichtermartyrtums wiirdig geachtet 
haben." 1 Here while vociferously disclaiming all kinship or 
sympathy with Byron, he pays him the flattering compliment 
of imitation. Probably nowhere in Byron could we find a 
more pompous display of egoism under the guise of Welt- 
schmerz. 

Byron's Weltschmerz, like Heine's, had its first provocation 
in a purely personal experience. "To a Lady" 2 and "Remem- 
brance" 3 both give expression in passionate terms to the poet's 
disappointed love for Mary Chaworth, the parallel in Heine's 
case being his infatuation for his cousin Amalie. The neces- 
sity for defending himself against a public opinion actively hos- 

1 Werke, Vol. Ill, p. 304. 

2 Byron's Works, Coleridge ed., London and New York, 1898. Vol. I, p. 189 ff. 

8 Ibid., p. 2ii. 



79 

tile to his earliest poems, 1 largely diverted Byron from this 
first painful theme, so that from this time on until he left 
England, he is almost incessantly engaged in a bitter warfare 
against the injustice of critics and of society. To this second 
period Heine's development also shows a general resemblance. 
Thus far both poets exhibit a purely egoistic type of Welt- 
schmerz. But with his separation from his wife in 1816, and 
his final departure from England, that of Byron enters upon a 
third period and becomes cosmic. Ostracized by English so- 
ciety, his relations with it finally severed, he disdains to defend 
himself further against its criticism, and espouses the cause of 
unhappy humanity. No longer his own personal woes, but 
rather those of the nations of the earth are nearest his heart : 

What are our woes and sufferance? . . . 
Ye! 

Whose agonies are evils of a day — 

A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. 2 

And in contemplating the ruins of the Palatine Hill : 

Upon such a shrine 

What are our petty griefs ? Let me not number mine. 8 

Here we have the essential difference between these two types 
of Weltschmerz. Heine does not, like Byron, make this tran- 
sition from the personal to the universal stage. Instead of 
becoming cosmic in his Weltschmerz, he remains for ever 
egoistic. 

Numerous quotations might he adduced from the writings 
of both poets, which would seem to indicate that Heine had 
borrowed many of his ideas and even some forms of expression 
from Byron. Except in the case of the most literal corre- 
spondence, this is generally a very unsafe deduction. Such 
passages as a rule prove nothing more than a similarity, pos- 
sibly quite independent, in the trend of their pessimistic 

1 Cf. the poems "To a Knot of Ungenerous Critics," "English Bards and 
Scotch Reviewers," and others. 

2 Coleridge ed., Vol. II, p. 388 f. 

3 Ibid., p. 406. 



80 

thought. Compare for example Byron's lines in the poem 
"And wilt thou weep when I am low?" 

Oh lady! blessed be that tear — 
It falls for one who cannot weep ; 
Such precious drops are doubly dear 
To those whose eyes no tear may steep, 1 

with Heine's stanza : 

Seit ich sie verloren hab', 
Schafft' ich auch das Weinen ab ; 
Fast vor Weh das Herz mir bricht, 
Aber weinen kann ich nicht. 2 

Or again, "Childe Harold," IV, 136: 

From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy 
Have I not seen what human things could do? 
From the loud rear of foaming calumny 
To the small whisper of the as paltry few — 
And subtler venom of the reptile crew, 3 

with the first lines of Heine's ninth sonnet : 

Ich mochte weinen, doch ich kann es nicht; 
Ich mocht' mich riistig in die Hohe heben, 
Doch kann ich's nicht ; am Boden muss ich kleben, 
Umkrachzt, umzischt von eklem Wurmgeziicht, 4 

a thought which in one of his letters (1823) he paraphrases 
thus : "Der Gedanke an Dich, Hebe Schwester, muss mich zu- 
weilen aufrecht halten, wenn die grosse Masse mit ihrem 
dummen Hass und ihrer ekelhaften Liebe mich niederdruckt." 6 
There can be no doubt that Heine for a time studied dili- 
gently to imitate this fashionable model, pose, irony and all. 
So diligently perhaps, that he himself was sometimes unable 
to distinglish between imitation and reality. So at least it 
would appear from No. 44 of "Die Heimkehr :" 

Ach Gott ! im Scherz und unbewusst 
Sprach ich, was ich gefiihlet: 
Ich hab mit dem Tod in der eignen Brust 
Den sterbenden Fechter gespielet. 6 

1 Coleridge ed., Vol. I, p. 266 f. 

2 Werke, Vol. I, p. 78. 

8 Coleridge ed., Vol. II, p. 429. 
4 Werke, Vol. I, p. 61. 
B Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 411. 
6 Werke, I, p. 117. 



81 

In summing up our impressions of the two poets we shall 
scarcely escape the feeling that while Byron is pleased to dis- 
play his troubles and his heart-aches before the curious gaze 
of the world, they are at least in the main real troubles and sin- 
cere heart-aches, whereas Heine, on the other hand, does a 
large business in Weltschmerz on a very small capital. 

Nor is Heine the man more convincing as to his sincerity 
than Heine the poet. No more striking instance of this fact 
could perhaps be found than his letter to Laube on hearing 
the news of Immermann's death. 1 "Gestern Abend erfuhr 
ich durch das Journal des Debats ganz zufallig den Tod von 
Immermann. Ich habe die ganze Nacht durch geweint. 
Welch ein Ungluck ! . . . Welch einen grossen Dichter haben 
wir Deutschen verloren, ohne ihn jemals recht gekannt zu 
haben ! Wir, ich meine Deutschland, die alte Rabenmutter ! 
Und nicht nur ein grosser Dichter war er, sondern auch brav 
und ehrlich, und deshalb liebte ich ihn. Ich liege ganz 
darnieder vor Kummer." But scarcely has he turned the page 
with a short intervening paragraph, when he continues : "Ich 
bin, sonderbar genug, sehr guter Laune," and concludes the 
letter with some small talk. Now if he was sincere, as we 
may assume he was, in the asseveration of his grief at the death 
of his friend, then either that grief must have been anything 
but profound, or we have the clearest sort of evidence of the 
poet's incapacity for serious feeling of more than momentary 
duration. It is safe to assert that Heine never set himself a 
high artistic task, and remained true to his purpose until the 
task was accomplished. In other words, Heine betrays a lack 
of will-energy along artistic lines, which in the case of Holder- 
lin and Lenau was more evident in their attitude toward the 
practical things of life. 

But the fact that Heine never created a monumental liter- 
ary work of enduring worth is not attributable solely to a 
fickleness of artistic purpose or lack of will-energy. We find 
its explanation rather in the poet's own statement: "Die 
Poesie ist am Ende doch nur eine schone Nebensache." 2 and to 

1 Werke, Karpeles ed. Vol. IX, p. 162 f. 

2 Letter to Immermann, Werke (Karpeles ed.), Vol. VIII, p. 354. 

6 



82 

this principle, consciously or unconsciously, Heine steadily 
adhered. Certain it is that he took a much lower view of his 
art than did Holderlin or Lenau. Hence we find him ever 
ready to degrade his muse by making it the vehicle for immoral 
thoughts and abominable calumnies. 1 

The question of Heine's patriotism has always been a much- 
debated one, and must doubtless remain so. But whatever 
opinion we may hold in regard to his real attitude and 
feelings toward the land of his birth, this we shall have to ad- 
mit, that there are exceedingly few traces of Weltschmerz 
arising from this source. Genuine feeling is expressed in the 
two-stanza poem "Ich hatte einst ein schones Vaterland" 2 and 
also in "Lebensfahrt," 3 although this latter poem illustrates a 
characteristic of so many of his writings, namely that he him- 
self is their central figure. Tt is the sublime egoism which 
characterizes Heine and all his works. No wonder, then, that 
one of his few "Freiheitslieder" refers to his own personal lib- 
erty. 4 For the failings of his countrymen he is ever ready 
with scathing satire, 5 he grieves over his separation from them 
only when he thinks of his mother ; 6 and in regard to the future 
of Germany he is for the most part sceptical. 7 In a word, 
Heine's lyric utterances in regard to his fatherland are of so 
mixed a character, that altogether aside from the question of 
the sincerity of his feeling toward the land of his birth, cer- 
tainly none but the blindest partisan would be able to discover 
more than a negligible quantity of Weltschmerz directly at- 
tributable to this influence. 

Heine's conscience is at best a doubtful quantity. Where 
Byron with a sincere sense and acknowledgment of his guilt 
writes : 

1 Cf. his vulgar prognostication of Germany's future, Kaput XXVI of the 
"Wintermarchen," Werke, Vol. II, p. 488 ff. 
2 Werke, Vol. I, p. 263. 
*Ibid., Vol. I, p. 308. 
4 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 301, "Adam der erste." 
B Ibid., Vol. I, p. 316, "Zur Beruhigung." 

6 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 320, "Nachtgedanken." 

7 Cf. supra, note 1. 



83 

"My injuries came down on those who loved me — 

On those whom I best loved : 

But my embrace was fatal." 1 

Heine sees it in quite another light : "War ich doch selber jetzt 
das lebende Gesetz der Moral und der Quell alles Rechtes und 
aller Befugnis ; die anruchigsten Magdalenen wurden purifi- 
ziert durch die lauternde und siihnende Macht meiner Liebes- 
flammen," 2 a moral aberration which he attributes to an im- 
perfect interpretation of the difficult philosophy of Hegel. If 
further evidence were necessary to show the perversity of 
Heine's moral sense, the following paragraph from a letter to 
Varnhagen would suffice, in its way perhaps as remarkable a 
contribution to the theory of ethics as has ever been penned: 
"In Deutschland ist man noch nicht so weit, zu begreifen, dass 
ein Mann, der das Edelste durch Wort und That befordern 
will, sich oft einige kleine Lumpigkeiten, sei es aus Spass oder 
aus Vorteil, zu schulden kommen lassen darf, wenn er nur durch 
diese Lumpigkeiten (d. h. Handlungen, die im Grunde ignobel 
sind,) der grossen Idee seines Lebens nichts schadet, ja dass 
diese Lumpigkeiten oft sogar lobenswert sind, wenn sie uns in 
den Stand setzen, der grossen Idee unsres Lebens desto wiirdiger 
zu dienen." 3 Scarcely less remarkable is the poet's confession 
to his friend Moser that he has a rubber soul : "Ich kann Dir 
das nicht oft genug wiederholen, damit Du mich nicht misst 
nach dem Massstabe Deiner eigenen grossen Seele. Die 
meinige ist Gummi elastic, zieht sich oft ins Unendliche 
und verschrumpft oft ins Winzige. Aber eine Seele habe ich 
doch. I am positive, I have a soul, so gut wie Sterne. 
Das geniige Dir. Liebe mich um der wunderlichen Sorte 
Gef iihls willen, die sich bei mir ausspricht in Thorheit und 
Weisheit, in Giite und Schlechtigkeit. Liebe mich, weil es 
Dir nun mal so einfallt, nicht, weil Du mich der Liebe wert 
haltst. . . . Ich hatte einen Polen zum Freund, fur den ich 
mich bis zu Tod besoffen hatte, oder, besser gesagt, fur den ich 
mich hatte totschlagen lassen, und fur den ich mich noch 
totschlagen Hesse, und der Kerl taugte fur keinen Pfennig, 

1 "Manfred," Coleridge ed., IV, p. 101. 

2 Werke VI, p. 48. 

8 Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 541. 



84 

und war venerisch, und hatte die schlechtesten Grundsatze — 
aber er hatte einen Kehllaut, mit welchem er auf so wunder- 
liche Weise das Wort 'Was?' sprechen konnte, dass ich in 
diesem Augenblick weinen und lachen muss, wenn ich daran 
denke." 1 

Taking him all in all then, Heine is not a serious personality, 
a fact which we need to keep constantly in mind in judging 
almost any and every side of his nature. 

As a matter of fact, Heine's Weltschmerz, like his whole 
personality, is of so complex and contradictory a nature, that 
it would be a hopeless undertaking to attempt to weigh each 
contributing factor and estimate exactly the amount of its 
influence. All the elements which have been briefly noted in 
the foregoing pages, and probably many minor ones which 
have not been mentioned, combined to produce in him that 
"Zerrissenheit" which finds such frequent expression in his 
writings. But it must be remembered that this "Zerrissen- 
heit" does not always express itself as Weltschmerz. In 
Heine it often appears simply as pugnacity; and where wit, 
satire, self-irony or even base calumny succeeds in covering up 
all traces of the poet's pathos we are no longer justified on 
sentimental or sympathetic grounds in taking it for granted. 
In looking for pathos in Heine's verse we shall not have to 
look in vain, it is true, but we shall find much less than his 
popular reputation as a poet of Weltschmerz would lead us 
to expect; and we frequently gain the impression that his dis- 
position and his personal experiences are after all largely the 
excuse for rather than the occasion of his Weltschmerz. 

Plumacher maintains : "Der Weltschmerz ist entweder die 
absolute Passivitat, und die Klage seine einzige Aeusserung, 
oder aber er verpufft seine Krafte in rein subjectivistischen, 
eudamonischen Anstrengungen," 2 — a characterization which 
certainly holds good in the case of Lenau and Holderlin re- 
spectively. Holderlin, although in a visionary, idealistic way, 
remains, even in his Weltschmerz, altruistic and constructive. 
Lenau is passive, while Heine is solely egoistic and destructive. 

1 Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 399. 

2 Plumacher: "Der Pessimismus." Heidelberg, 1888, p. 103. 



CHAPTER V 

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Wechsler, Ed. Nicolaus Lenau. Eine litterarische Studie. 
Westermanns 111. Monatsh. 68, p. 676-92. 

Weisser, Paul. Lenau und Marie Behrends. Deutsche 
Rundschau, 1889, p. 420 ff. 

Witt, A. Lenau's Leben und Charakter. Marburg, 1893. 

Heine 

Heinrich Heines Sammtliche Werke. Hamburg, Hoffmann 

und Campe, 1876. 
Heinrich Heines Gesammelte Werke. Kritische Gesammtaus- 

gabe, herausgegeben von Gustav Karpeles. Berlin, 1887. 
Heinrich Heines Sammtliche Werke. Kritisch durchgesehene 

und erlauterte Ausgabe, herausgegeben von Ernst Elster. 

Leipzig, Bibliogr. Inst. 1890. 
Briefe von Heinrich Heine an seinen Freund Moses Moser. 

Leipzig, 1862. 

Arnold, Matthew. Essays in Criticism. 3d. ed. London, 1875. 
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don, 1884. Heine, p. 79-141. 



90 

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91 

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1900. 
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1883. 



VITA 

The writer was born in Ontario, Canada, September 6, 1873. 
After receiving his elementary education in the public schools, 
he entered the Collegiate Institute at Brantford, Canada, in 
1888, where he spent three and a half years, entering the Uni- 
versity of Toronto in 1891. Here his work in German was 
directed by Professor VanderSmissen and Dr. Needier. On 
graduating with honors in Modern Languages in 1895, the fol- 
lowing year was spent in private tutoring at the University. In 
1897 he was appointed to the" chair of Modern Languages in 
Alma College, St. Thomas, Ontario, which position he resigned 
after a year's tenure to accept a German fellowship at the Uni- 
versity of Chicago. During the year 1897-98 he attended 
courses by Professor Cutting on "Faust," Professor von 
Klenze's courses on the "Nibelungenlied" and Middle High Ger- 
man, and his seminar on Lenau ; and in his minor subject Pro- 
fessor Tolman's course on Pre-Elizabethan English Drama. 
In the following year the writer migrated to Columbia Univ- 
sity, having been appointed to a fellowship in German. Here 
during two years of graduate study the following courses were 
heard : under Professor Willliam H. Carpenter, Gothic, In- 
troduction to Germanic Philology, and seminars on Wolfram 
von Eschenbach's "Parzival," and on "Reinke de Vos ;" under 
Professor Calvin Thomas, Great German writers : Lessing, 
Goethe, Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur im 19. Jahrhun- 
dert, seminars on the Literature of the Revolution of 1848, and 
on Hauptmann ; and under Professor Thomas Price a course on 
Chaucer. In 1899 the writer was appointed to an assistantship 
in the Germanic Languages and Literatures in Barnard College, 
from which position he was promoted in 1900 to be tutor in the 
same department. 



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